Diaspora
by debbiechan
Summary: Can Ulquiorra's allegiance ever waver? Can Ishida's? Warnings for dark content, manga spoilers, yaoi references and het references. Aizen, Gin, Orihime, Tousen, ZaelApollo
1. Part One

Diaspora

by debbiechan

Disclaimer: Kubo Tite owns Bleach; Bleach owns my soul.

Description: Hard R. A story about identity. Can Ulquiorra's allegiance ever waver? Can Ishida's? Aizen, Gin, Tousen, Orihime, Zael-Apollo.

Warnings: Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc, (mild) dark-fic-ness, (not overly explicit) sexual weirdness, mind fuckery, a hougyoku with erotic powers, and a long author's notes at the end.

A/N: This story, written the week chapter 272 appeared, begins with the presumption that Renji and Ishida were defeated by Zael-Apollo.

Part One

A_ct as if everything is normalAizen, chapter 245_

Calm. Commanding. Restrained.

Everyone in Las Noches could describe Aizen-sama this way, but the adjectives didn't suit the fourth Espada. There appeared to be nothing in Ulquiorra's temperament _to_ restrain. His manner maintained a robotic poise, but that was it. No passion, no curiosity, no amusement in the goings-on of lesser beings. Most Arrancar displayed remnants of their crass and lumbering Hollow selves, but Ulquiorra must've been an atypical Hollow. Possibly an atypical human before his death. Someone devoid of enthusiasm but full of aplomb. The matter of Ulquiorra's hand always being in his pocket lent him an air of nonchalance, but it was also as if he were clutching a secret.

It was as if his Arrancar personality was not his own; it was as if Ulquiorra were a small, elegant mirror of Aizen-sama.

Deep in the white cellars of Las Noches, the enigmatic fourth Espada was often the subject of conversation. Here, where Arrancar artisans crafted beautiful things for the palace and never practiced battle, amidst the sounds of reishi sculpting quartz, here-- gossip and speculation were art forms.

"He's not so smart," said one Arrancar. "He _acts_ like he knows it all, but that doesn't mean he's anything like Aizen-sama."

"Our leader trusts him, though," said the second Arrancar. He was unscrolling sheets of white fabric from thin air. "He sends Ulquiorra on important missions."

"That's because Ulquiorra, of all the Espada, is the most devoted." The first Arrancar kneaded the newly created fabric in his hands like dough. Trousers materialized. One yank of the fingers and a pants leg flared into an exaggerated pyramid at the foot. Unique designs won Aizen's approval, and that approval was what Arrancar lived for… at least that's what most of them claimed.

"Faithfulness is one thing," continued the first Arrancar with a cynical half-smile. "But excessive devotion makes one a woman."

"What do you mean?"

"Ulquiorra is the woman of the court. An obedient woman."

"I don't get it," said the second Arrancar. "Halibel is a woman, not Ulquiorra."

"Ha. I didn't mean woman _woman_. I meant _bitch puppet_." The first Arrancar spun fabric between reishi-charged hands, and his pale face reflected the concentrated blue energy. "You must've led a sheltered life. Or you don't remember anything before your incarnation as an Arrancar?"

"I…." The second Arrancar looked confused. A length of fabric broke from an emerging gown and fell into folded layers on the floor.

"You must've died as a mindless little baby if you don't remember anything."

"I was a tailor before I was a Hollow. I remember it all very well."

"That's right. A _tailor_. I forgot." The first Arrancar was not at all embarrassed to have proven himself and not his companion to have the faulty memory. "You were in that wacky cult."

"It wasn't wacky. There was a peaceful measure of days, the comfort of a code of honor." His voice of the second Arrancar turned bitter, and he gritted his skeletal teeth. "Then the Shinigami came and murdered my people."

"Forget it," said the other. "Forget that Quincy life. The Arrancar are your people now."

"Yes, yes." The Arrancar's face relaxed a little. "It's good here in Las Noches. Aizen-sama promised to make us beings of incredible strength and he followed through on that promise. No wonder Ulquiorra is devoted to him. If I were an Espada and near our leader, I would be endlessly devoted as well."

"You would be." The first Arrancar tossed a silken sash into the air, and as he caught it again, the fabric changed from white to purple. "This," he said, holding up the finished product with satisfaction, "is as much for myself as for Aizen-sama."

"Of course," said the second Arrancar. Anticipating a boring lecture, he returned to his work. "We didn't lose our pride when we became Arrancar."

"And there's so much more we didn't lose," snorted the first. "_Hollow are beings of self-interest_. Unless you're a stupid woman like Ulquiorra, that is."

The second Arrancar smoothed his palm over the purple lining of a simple but regal coat. "I think you're underestimating Ulquiorra," he said. "I think everyone is."

----

High in a white tower in a white-tiered room with many white couches, the ruling triumvirate of Las Noches had decided on the evening's agenda. Entertainment, all agreed, was called for. Until the Winter War, the delegating class needed something to do besides ordering Arrancar around.

Gin-sama viewed all things beyond Aizen's court with blatant amusement. Aizen enjoyed himself no less than Gin but was able to restrain himself from smiling. Tousen-sama stood tense and grim as Ulquiorra entered the room.

The Fourth Espada was small but he held his chin at an angle that confirmed stature and high rank. His eyes met the eyes of Aizen-sama without humility.

"I was told," Ulquiorra spoke before being spoken to, "that I have a new charge."

"Oh you must stay busy, busy, busy," came Gin's lilting voice. "Or else that beautiful mind of yours will get bored."

"Ishida Uryuu," said Aizen. "He's in the room next to Orihime-chan's and all the information we have about him was transferred to your private data files last week. I'm entrusting you to be as creative as you wish with your task."

"Psychological manipulation?" asked Ulquiorra.

"No," said Aizen. "He's a Quincy. Two hundred years of trauma are too easily irritated. It would take less than a day to drive the boy completely mad, and an insane prisoner is useless for my purposes."

Aizen's purposes took less than a minute to explain.

"If I may ask…." Ulquiorra began. He was given to asking unabashed questions because he was the favorite Espada, if not the strongest, in Aizen's court. "Why me? There are others whose strengths would benefit from this Quincy experiment, other Espada whose capabilities are not as diverse as mine."

"But it's precisely your diverse talents," said Aizen, "that makes you perfect to implement this test. In the unfortunate but highly unlikely case that the Quincy would cause you to lose a limb, your power of regeneration is unique among my Espada."

"Oh don't lie like that, Sousuke," said Gin. "There's more, and not telling everything is flat out lying."

Aizen gave Gin a fond, indulgent look. "What are my other reasons for sending Ulquiorra to Ishida-kun, then?"

Gin sunk against the white couch and crossed his legs. His fingers made a little pagoda on his lap. "Number Four, I believe Sousuke wants to test your sexual loyalty."

Ulquiorra didn't blink. He didn't look at Gin and instead addressed his question to Aizen: "Why would I have sex with human trash?"

"Because your leader would like to see you on top of the heap for once?" Gin's smile widened. "Sousuke thinks you and the boy look alike. That might be … charming."

Ulquiorra spoke only to Aizen. "Is this what you want me to do? Achieve your goals through sexual coercion? I'm not the best candidate for this. Noitra--"

"Ichimaru!" Tousen snapped. The muscles in his face were as strained as Gin's were slack. "You're interfering with Aizen's authority again and you're confusing Number Four."

"That's quite alright," said Aizen. "Gin likes to raise the stakes in his diversions." Aizen turned to the Espada who was awaiting clarification of his orders. "Ulquiorra, sex is one means of exchanging spirit particles, but as you know, there are other, less distasteful methods that Mayuri discovered in his years of studying the clan. You've read the extensive data. You have the equipment. Beyond that …do what you wish."

Ulquiorra didn't wait to be dismissed. He was used to being sent on missions with the words _do what you wish_. Aizen had perfect faith in him. Hand in pocket, Ulquiorra strolled out of the room.

"Oh Number Four?" Gin called after him. "I bet the first thing the boy's going to ask is _what are you going to do with Inoue-san? _You can take it from there."

Tousen let out a frustrated breath. "If you're so sure about how to accomplish this business, then why don't you do it yourself?"

Gin gave Tousen a deadpan look. "There now," he said as Ulquiorra's footsteps faded. "Haven't I made it all the more interesting? He'll think he's betraying us."

"You're sick, Ichimaru," Tousen said.

As his associates quarreled, Aizen rose out of his seat and began the long walk upstairs to the observatory room. He could see reports later from Ulquiorra's eyeball, but he was eager to watch the first encounter as it happened.

----

The window in the new room was lower than the window in the old room, and Orihime didn't need to strain her neck to look through it. It was, in fact, at eye-level, and by virtue of simple perspective, the window couldn't hold the strange, high, and backwards moon of Hueco Mundo; instead it held a view of the desert sands outside the palace and….

Freedom? Even if she knew how to escape, she wouldn't leave Las Noches until she'd destroyed the hougyoku. Even then, Aizen would kill her for accomplishing such a deed.

The situation seemed hopeless, but in some ways it was not so different from a forlorn night in the Living World_. I'm so alone. How will I die? Will I ever achieve anything important?_

One of the many things Orihime thought about when looking out her window was that hope was wrongly compared to spring-like, gentle things. Hope was not like a flower, not like a bird. Hope was vast and constant, like a desert. Hope wasn't happiness; it was a lonely emotion, actually, and it moved across a lifetime in heavy, colorless waves.

She wondered if there would be another invasion of Las Noches, if others would fall trying to save her.

She wondered about the tear-stains on Ulquiorra's cheeks. She had believed that the markings came from gunk that ran when he pulled his eyeball out, but after the third or fourth time he took it out to show her the deaths of her friends, she noticed that nothing leaked from his eyes. The eyeball popped out as simply as an egg from a magician's mouth.

No, it couldn't be that her friends were dead. It was a trick. On Soukyoku Hill, Orihime had heard Aizen reveal that seeing his released zanpakutou meant absolute hypnosis. Even though she could not remember having seen the release, she must've. Or if she hadn't, the projected images from Ulquiorra's eyeball were fabrications. She was certain, _certain, _that she'd felt the injured restoring themselves. They'd left Hueco Mundo--that's why she could no longer sense their reiatsu.

Not dead. _Gone?_

A sand-storm stirred outside the window. Orihime was pressing her forehead against the glass, telling herself _not dead, not dead_, and feeling her hopes hold like stubborn dunes against an onslaught of doubt when ... what? It was just outside her room. Determination? Pride? A familiar life-force was drawing closer and becoming more distinct.

It was Ishida-kun.

----

"That's not going to help," said Ulquiorra upon entering Ishida's cell. The Quincy was facing a wall and pressing his palms against it as if he could knock the building down by sheer will. "This room stifles your reiatsu almost entirely."

Ishida put his arms to his sides and glared.

"Once our scientists configure all entrances to Las Noches with reiatsu-inhibitors, our dealings with intruders will be more efficient." Ulquiorra looked the Quincy up and down. "But Aizen-sama said it's no matter. Your friends died quickly enough."

"They're not dead."

Ishida Uryuu wore a fierce expression but a slight darting of his eyes told Ulquiorra that the boy had doubts.

"I can show you how they died. Would you like to see?"

"What are you going to do with Inoue-san?" Ishida asked. "Why did the Arrancar take her?"

For a brief moment, Ulquiorra wondered if the boy was an illusion that Aizen had concocted and which Gin knew all about.

"Orihime is the only one of your friends who survived."

No, the Quincy wasn't an illusion because the response in his eyes couldn't be mimicked by Aizen's shikai. _Hope_. Ulquiorra had seen that look in the human girl's eyes before. Why did these beings hang onto false beliefs in the face of plain evidence?

Ulquiorra walked closer and closer until he was standing an arm's length in front of Ishida. He could sense that the boy didn't want to ask the next question.

"Is she…." Ishida's voice shook. "Did you hurt her?"

"Of course not. Aizen-sama finds her interesting and beautiful, and as long as she stays that way, he will keep her alive."

"What are you talking about?" Ishida's voice rose. "Aizen doesn't need her for that. He could've taken any human or Shinigami girl he wanted for that. I know that you're lying, so you may as well tell me the truth."

"I don't have to tell you anything." Ulquiorra's voice was emotionless. "I'm here to take a look at you in the flesh and report back to Aizen-sama."

Ishida closed his eyes and set his jaw. He was regaining his composure. His next words were spoken in as prideful and commanding a tone as he'd ever spoken. He pushed his glasses up his nose and brushed away a blood-clotted lock of hair from his forehead. "You don't know who you're dealing with. I'm a Quincy. Tell Aizen that a Quincy is here."

"Oh Aizen knows all about the Quincy. Didn't you deduce that when Cirucci said she knew about your clan?"

Ishida startled. It was an unequivocal fact; Cirucci had mentioned the Quincy being wiped out by the Shinigami.

"How else," Ulquiorra continued, "would Cirucci Thunderwitch have such a memory? Aizen provided his soldiers with enough data to equal hundreds of years of your experience. We know how Quincy lived and died. We know the extent of their insignificant powers. We know the limits of _yours_."

The boy looked vulnerable but his fingers instinctively opened at his sides. Whereas anyone else would make a fist when provoked, a Quincy reached to draw his bow.

"You know it doesn't work, not here." Ulquiorra's chin gestured at one of Ishida's broad, bloodstained cuffs. "That's why we didn't confiscate it. Aizen-sama would not be interested in it, so you may keep the bracelet."

The Quincy gave the Arrancar a puzzled look.

"You may keep it," Ulquiorra added, "as a reminder of who you are."

"Inoue-san," said Ishida. "She's near here, isn't she?"

"Your clothes are filthy and have to be replaced," Ulquiorra said. "Had I known you looked this pathetic, I would've sent new clothes before I came here."

"Inoue--"

"I have no need to talk further with _basura _so drenched in defeat."

Ulquiorra turned and walked out the door, and Ishida was left, blinking over the odd encounter.

It took Ishida a long moment to realize that in this reiatsu-inhibiting room, his visitor's powers must've been diminished like his own. Why had he allowed himself to be intimidated by that little Arrancar? There had been little spirit power emanating from the Arrancar at all and Ishida hadn't even noticed that fact.

Why had the Arrancar been so confident that Ishida wouldn't escape and summon his bow once past the walls? The zanpakutou at the Arrancar's side was useless here.

Ishida sat on the floor and cupped his chin in his hand.

This white-skinned, tear-stained being was unlike other Arrancar Ishida had come into contact with so far. What was the deal with letting him keep his Quincy cross? The gesture was not a kindness. Ishida opened his cuff and as the bracelet fell out, the silver glittered even in the dim light. Was Ishida allowed to keep the cross so that his lack of powers would be a source of constant frustration?

Was the haughty Arrancar a high ranked Espada? He had seemed genuinely disgusted with Ishida's bloody, bedraggled state.

Ishida touched the hem of the cape he'd sewn before coming to Hueco Mundo. His wounds were all superficial but there was a lot of blood. He hadn't noticed how much before.

New clothes being sent? Ishida didn't want to think about that, and lifting his head, he reached out with his senses.

He was able to detect a muted spiritual pressure outside the room. Unlike the sekkiseki-constructed walls around the Seireitei, these walls drained his reiatsu but allowed him to sense a few kilometers beyond where he was imprisoned. Either that or Ishida's own perceptive skills had advanced more than he thought--maybe training with his father in that invisible room had heightened them.

Figures walked up and down corridors. Each radiated a recognizable reiatsu shape; they were all Arrancar. Power levels seemed subdued but not deliberately hidden. The spirits in nearby rooms were harder to sense--they were asleep or barely cognizant; maybe they were Hollow and not Arrancar?

And very nearby …there was the shape of absence … a hole in the air …a figure where reiatsu should be but wasn't …

Ishida rose to one knee.

The shape of a small, human, long-haired …

g_irl?_

What this ghost might mean struck Ishida harder than the sudden perception of it. She had been there. Inoue-san had been there but--

Why an impression in the dimensional field that was Hueco Mundo? Ishida wanted to think that she was gone home safe with the others, but--

The others hadn't left such holes in space. Inoue-san had such bizarre powers that there was the possibility that this negative space was what remained when her spirit….

The Arrancar himself had said that she was alive.

The girl who could bring others from the brink of death could surely heal herself, couldn't she? Inoue-san wasn't--

Ishida noticed the window. A window in a prison made no sense. Neither did the opulent sofa in the corner, the empty vases, and the ornamental embossment over the door.

In the window, a slight wind was rippling sand dunes.

T_hink, think, think. _Ishida rose and walked to the window. He pressed his forehead against the strange transparency that wasn't glass. _She isn't dead because Urahara-san said Aizen was interested in her powers. She's somewhere here._

Even though some hours had passed since Ishida and the rescue team had arrived at Las Noches, the sky still looked like evening on the verge of night. Even as he tried to convince himself that there must be a way to save her, Ishida felt his mind empty of ideas.

The quartz trees glinted white and blue.

Then the sand from the gathering storm rose and blew past the window, and Ishida couldn't see anything anymore.

He didn't have a single plan.

----

Zael-Apollo Grantz knew more about Quincy that Aizen did and probably more than Kurotsuchi Mayuri had ever noted in reports confiscated from Soul Society. Zael-Apollo's laboratory, Ulquiorra knew, was a necessary stop.

Ulquiorra walked at a leisurely pace. Las Noches was huge; a walk anywhere required patience and time, but there wasn't anything else to do. No one ever flash-stepped from place to place.

Besides, Ulquiorra needed some moments to think about his assignment.

So Aizen wanted his soldiers to manipulate spiritrons like Quincy archers? Ulquiorra didn't expect the experiment to work, but then again, it was just an experiment, not a dangerous one, and one that could yield important scientific data.

It was a Quincy test, Ulquiorra told himself, and not--as Gin had implied--a test of Arrancar Number Four.

Gin was so disgusting.

Aizen-sama had said that psychological manipulation of the subject wasn't required, but he hadn't forbidden it. The fourth Espada didn't question his leader's judgement, but Ulquiorra knew that warriors were not broken easily with physical intimidation or torture. They didn't switch allegiances under threats of death or disfigurement. Aizen wanted the Quincy's mind sound and brave throughout the experiment, but Ulquiorra knew that little tauntings wouldn't hurt Aizen's objectives. In any event, the Quincy was going to be easily conquered and recruited into Aizen's army.

As for cutting the first encounter short, Ulquiorra wasn't going to stand near the dirty being--let alone touch him--until he was bathed and presentable.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" came a voice near a staircase.

"That life is too easy when you're not a Privaron?"

"No! That the kid looked exactly like Ulquiorra in those clothes we brought him."

Ulquiorra paused in the hallway to listen to the two Arrancar. A thick-necked one with large bony hands sat the bottom stair. The second, an Arrancar as slight as Ulquiorra himself, leaned against the wall.

Behind slits in the Hollow mask that covered most of the second Arrancar's face were two mild and patient eyes. "I don't think there's anyone," said this little worker-Arrancar, "who looks like Ulquiorra."

"Not in attitude, you mean," said the first, "but the black black hair. All the angles and skinniness…. Tough-looking, though, for a runt. Like you too, actually."

"We gave him the coat we'd made for Aizen-sama. Do you think that was wise?"

"Ulquiorra's communication made it sound like an urgent matter," said the first. "How was I supposed to know we were bringing clothes to a human prisoner? I thought Ulquiorra had finally picked a fraccion."

Ulquiorra stepped into view of the Arrancar. "It's fine," he said. "Whatever you brought him to wear is fine."

One would've thought that Ulquiorra had breathed fire into the air instead of announcing himself in a calm voice. Flustered and bowing over and over, the Arrancar babbled many apologies for loitering at their jobs. Then they disappeared up the stairs before Ulquiorra could say another word.

L_ike me_? The Fourth Espada continued down the corridor. _There has never been, nor will there ever be, anyone like me._ _Least of all a dress-making Arrancar…._

Ulquiorra jutted out his chin even though there was no one there to answer his arrogance.

_And Ishida Uryuu? Tonight I should leech the very soul out of that Quincy._

----

A pounding torrent of spiritual pressure, the unbearable ecstasy of the Arrancar hole clenching and letting go, being grabbed by the hair and thrown into pleasure as Aizen-sama levitated above the white couch. For a newborn who had yet to taste food or drink, sex with the king of Las Noches was a more thrilling event than tearing off one's Hollow mask and surviving the Arrancar creation process.

Zael-Apollo had been Aizen's lover for a time, but he was soon forgotten for others who had come before and for others yet to be created by the hougyoku.

The type of lover Aizen preferred was lithe and clever. From the way the leader of Las Noches had once rubbed his palms against Zael-Apollo's shoulder blades, the scientist had deduced that the upper rib cage was Sousuke's favorite body part. If there had been any way to make himself bonier and more delicate-limbed, Zael would have discovered it.

Instead, he dyed his hair and painted his eyelids in an effort to catch Aizen's attention again.

Surprisingly for a scientist, Zael-Apollo Grantz valued physical attractiveness over intelligence. Even after having been assigned a laboratory, he believed that his role as an inventor of tactical weaponry didn't suit him. Gadgets didn't catch Aizen-sama's attention because Aizen was a scientist himself.

Zael's older brother was a pretty one, and Zael hated him. Even though Zael's prowess with a sword would earn him a place among the top ten Espada and even though Aizen showed no sexual interest in lower-ranked Arrancar like Ilforte Grantz, Zael envied his brother with a murderous intent that inspired the deadliest of his laboratory's inventions.

Zael also envied Ichimaru Gin, Aizen's obvious favorite. Gin had the most striking dip between his neck and clavicle that the scientist Arrancar, a forever-fixed physique, could not compete against. Perhaps if Zael could develop a more playful sense of humor? Ichimaru was so annoyingly quick-witted and insinuating.

And then there was Espada Number Four. There was no science in the world that would help Zael emulate Ulquiorra's boyish bottom lip and green-irised allegiance to Aizen. Ulquiorra Shiffer was deadly power and delicate beauty combined, and Zael despised him.

The suppressed reiatsu of the Despised One entered the laboratory.

"Hmm, so he let's you carry it around like that." Zael turned his swivel stool around to face Ulquiorra. "Not very wise of Aizen, wouldn't you say?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The hougyoku." Zael-Apollo tossed back his pink hair. "Aizen-sama requested that I make these glasses for the sole purpose of detecting it. I know it's in your pocket."

Ulquiorra was unfazed. "How involved are you in the Quincy experiment, Zael?"

"Aizen-sama didn't tell you? But you're his _favorite!"_

"I know that I'm supposed to gain in spiritual strength if the experiment is successful," said Ulquiorra. "Aizen-sama didn't brief me thoroughly, but that's because he trusts me to take creative initiative once I'm given preliminary data."

If Zael didn't know better, he would've thought Ulquiorra was bragging. "Truth be known," Zael-Apollo said, "I have no idea why Aizen's interested in that pitiful human Quincy."

"The Quincy," Ulquiorra continued, "interests Aizen-sama because of his ability to manipulate spiritrons. Such an ability is beyond anything you've come up with in your laboratory."

"Yet I was able to defeat him soundly," Zael snapped.

"Luck," said Ulquiorra. "Your information from his battle with Cirucci and your released form didn't carry you far. From the footage I saw, you were able to disarm him with a small block of your new reiatsu-draining material. He didn't have time to evolve."

"Into what? A Quincy with a bigger bow and a longer cape?"

"Aizen-sama is interested in his possible evolution, just as he is with Kurosaki Ichigo's."

"A waste of time. He should have allowed me to kill them all instead of faking their deaths and kicking them back to the Living World. That took _effort_. I could've been working on the reiatsu-inhibiting crystals."

Zael fluttered his long pink lashes and refocused his attention into a handheld telescope. It was a black tube the length of Ulquiorra's zanpakutou, and after adjusting the dial near his eye, Zael pointed the telescope at the door. "I can see through walls with this," he said.

Hand in pocket, Ulquiorra walked closer until he stood blocking the lens.

"Please don't interfere with my scientific pursuits, Number Four." Zael looked over the eyepiece. "I was on the verge of discovering the color of the corridor. I was predicting _white_._"_

"I want you to advise me on how to best accomplish Aizen-sama's goals without injury or humiliation to myself."

Zael-Apollo put down his telescope. "It sounds to me like Aizen-sama trusts you but that you don't trust _him._"

"Aizen-sama's data came from a scientist in Soul Society. I'm asking you to give me more information is all."

"Why would I do that? You know I hate you."

"How you feel about me is inconsequential," said Ulquiorra.

Zael-Apollo had a habit of slouching with his arms crossed when he felt threatened. It was anything but a warrior's stance, but it would've caught any opponent but an Espada off-guard.

"I don't know how much new information about the Quincy people I can offer. What makes you think I haven't already given Aizen all the data that I have?"

"That's not possible," said Ulquiorra. "Personal memories are infinite when compared to simple quantitative data. You were a Quincy in your human life"

Zael snorted. "Someone's been taking a look at my files."

"Aizen-sama gave me the information."

Zael's foot kicked off a spin on the swivel stool. There was a blade, among other things, hidden in his telescope. He didn't want to get violent--he was no good at that. "What makes you believe that Aizen, _who knows everything by the way_, didn't read my file and decide that my memories were _inconsequential _to the Quincy experiment?"

"You know more than what you're telling," said Ulquiorra in his soft resonant voice. "I want information."

Ulquiorra's voice was young-sounding but nonetheless intimidating. Zael-Apollo was forever envious of its sexiness.

Espada Number Eight considered his options as Espada Number Four's green eyes stared like Doom and Death. Ulquiorra's reiatsu was rising in miniscule increments that foretold a power-up. Zael wondered if his own sonido abilities were keen enough to out-run the little guy.

"You are aware," said Ulquiorra, "that I could kill you with one hand if you don't give me the information I want."

"I could lie," Zael grumbled.

"Then I'd kill you later."

"Ha. You're pretty when you're emotionless." Zael affected a sardonic calm. "Pretty is as pretty does, but I imagine that you'll be thrown over for that angelic-eyed Wonderweiss eventually."

"You're ridiculous," said Ulquiorra. "This spite of yours must inhibit your research. Sexual jealousy is an emotion that makes a warrior vulnerable to psychological manipulation."

"Whatever," said Zael. He uncrossed his arms and spun around once on his swiveling chair. He was secure now that Ulquiorra wasn't going to kill him. Ulquiorra avoided unnecessary killing. Everyone knew that.

I _may as well have some fun with Number Four while being interrogated about the Quincy ways. He wants information? I'll give him __**information.**_

"I think Aizen-sama may actually enjoy the flailing about for his attention," Zael said. "And he hasn't given up on me yet. Did he tell you that I was being considered to undertake this experiment? I was the number one candidate for a while."

"I'm not surprised," said Ulquiorra, "Aizen-sama knows about your Quincy soul."

"Oh but there's something else that would surprise you," said Zael-Apollo with a slow grin.

"I'm not here to listen to you brag about your attributes."

"Not bragging, not bragging." Zael's smile broadened. "All I wanted to tell you was that Aizen-sama chose _another_ ex-Quincy for this mission."

Silence.

One couldn't say for certain that Ulquiorra's eyes had widened, but the white around his green irises seemed more conspicuous. If not for the sudden stasis in Number Four's reiatsu, Zael wouldn't have been able to tell that Ulquiorra was in shock.

"Oh yes, Ulquiorra Shiffer, _Espada Number Four_, you were a Quincy once. Aizen knows--even if you yourself don't remember." Zael's smile opened and revealed a set of perfect white teeth. "And you _don't_ remember, do you?"

T_BC_


	2. Part Two

Diaspora

by debbiechan

Disclaimer: Kubo Tite owns Bleach; Bleach owns my soul.

Description: Hard R. A story about identity. Can Ulquiorra's allegiance ever waver? Can Ishida's? Aizen, Gin, Tousen, Orihime, Zael-Apollo.

Warnings: Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc, (mild) dark-fic-ness, (not overly explicit) sexual weirdness, mind fuckery, a hougyoku with erotic powers, and a long author's note at the end.

A/N: This story, written the week chapter 272 appeared, begins with the presumption that Renji and Ishida were defeated by Zael-Apollo.

Part Two

I_t makes her think that she chose this path of her own free will…_

A_nd thus her heart wavers a bit Ulquiorra, chapter 249_

Orihime didn't think anything in Las Noches could surprise her anymore. When first brought to this room, she had startled at every stirring of reiatsu. Ulquiorra--adept at hiding his spirit energy--had made her nearly hit the ceiling the first time he opened the door. "Knock, please," Orihime had asked of him. "People with manners don't sneak up on other people."

Ulquiorra would announce himself before entering her quarters now.

Even as the malevolent-looking Espada had popped out his eyeball and showed her image after image of her friends being murdered, Orihime wondered if maybe Ulquiorra was an Innocent. Were not all the Arrancar the tragic creations of a truly evil man? Maybe her tear-stained keeper was someone who didn't understand his crimes.

Then, after the fourth time Ulquiorra entered to show her eyeball projection, she watched Ulquiorra's face instead of the friend's death.

The Espada didn't know he was being watched, and Orihime's never veered, even though the periphery of her vision caught Abarai Renji kneeling and having his head sliced off. An unseen murderer, as always, swung the sword. As always, there was nausea and horror as head and torso tumbled together, but Orihime didn't cry. Orihime had already seen Kurosaki-kun, Kuchiki-san, and Ishida-kun die the same way, and she _didn't believe any of it_. What she did believe now was that Ulquiorra had a conscience.

He had a conscience because a trace of pride had flickered in his one eye. A look of accomplishment. An infinitesimal betrayal of feeling. _She's fooled_, the eye had said. _This is very good._

O_nly a monster,_ Orihime had thought, _would take delight in deceiving people like that._

Still, doubt was part of her human soul. Orihime worried that her friends had not escaped Las Noches after all. She doubted her assessment of Ulquiorra. Maybe she was reading him all wrong; maybe he was indeed an unemotional fact-bringer and the images in his retina were real. Orihime had doubted, with an ache in her belly and dread in her chest, until she sensed Ishida-kun.

Her hopes, at that moment, were so overwhelming that they buried her. She couldn't think straight. If Ishida was alive, then the others might be somewhere in the palace. If Aizen wanted Orihime for her healing powers, then he might want everyone else alive for similar reasons. To harvest their powers--something like that. Orihime could save them. Orihime could still destroy the hougyoku and save them all.

It was not a half-hour after her emotions were settling and Orihime was sitting dreamily on the couch, basking in Ishida-kun's undeniable reiatsu, that Ulquiorra came to stir up her anger.

"Ulquiorra here," came a voice behind the door.

"_Monster,"_ Orihime whispered. The sense of feeling betrayed surprised her.

Ulquiorra walked inside, and Orihime felt nothing but fury at the sight of him. She sputtered a bit before she managed to yell, "You--you MONSTER."

The great Espada Number Four took one step backwards. His surprise over finding Orihime like this was that great.

"They're not dead! They're not dead!" Clenching her fists, Orihime rose from the giant white couch. "Ishida-kun is here! I can feel him!"

"Why do you care?" Ulquiorra asked. He was composed now, and he sounded genuinely curious. "Why does it matter? You will never see Ishida Uryuu or the others again."

"What?" Orihime had been stomping in the direction of her keeper with violent intent but at those words she stopped cold. "But you let me believe they were dead! Why? Why would you do such a thing?"

"Aizen-sama's orders," Ulquiorra said.

Orihime's lip curled and she shook her head. "No, no, you enjoyed it. I know you did." The tears were starting in her eyes. "What kind of person are you?" Orihime hated Ulquiorra and she hated herself for having doubted his wickedness once. Aizen's envoy. Something not human. How could he be so inhuman?

"If Aizen told you to kill me and then kill yourself …." Orihime felt the question fly out of her mouth, apparently from nowhere. "You would do it, wouldn't you?"

Ulquiorra was looking at a corner of the ceiling.

"No," he said. "I would not kill you." His gaze swept around the giant, luxurious drawing room as if looking for a flaw in its perfection. "And I would certainly not kill myself."

That was not the answer Orihime had been expecting.

"You're too important to Aizen's objectives," Ulquiorra explained. "And I myself am important to them. Aizen-sama would never give such an order. An Aizen-sama who would. …" Espada Number Four actually hesitated. "Such an Aizen-sama would be an illusion."

Orihime didn't understand, but there was something changed about Ulquiorra. He didn't seem any less monstrous but he did seem more _real. _Less Hollowish and more plain _bad person_ like Tousen or Gin. Maybe that was because Orihime had actually been disappointed in him. What kind of person was _she_ that she had expected anything less than malicious intent from this being?

Orihime was still breathing hard from rage. "I can sense Ishida-kun in the room right next to this one, but where are the others? Kurosaki-kun and--"

"You couldn't tell? They were thrown back to the Living World." Ulquiorra's truth-telling voice was no different from his lying voice. "They need to grow up. They may yet develop into beings Aizen-sama would find interesting." He walked further into the room and placed one palm on the wall. "If your sensing abilities are keen enough to penetrate this construction and recognize Ishida Uryuu, then you must have felt your friends leave this realm alive."

He stared at her. "You doubted, though."

What kind of accusation was that supposed to be? Orihime felt accused of something.

"What are you going to do with Ishida-kun?"

"He asked the same of you," said Ulquiorra. "Wouldn't it be better if you and he considered one another dead? You only distract yourselves with this unnecessary doubt and worry."

"Unnecessary?" Orihime was certain that her friends were alive but there was a chalky taste of fear rising in her mouth. What could be worse than believing a friend was dead? How was grief supposed to save her from distraction? Who _was _this person?

"Well, I came to see if you were alright," said Ulquiorra. "And so you are. Passionate, even. Aizen-sama may find that interesting or he may not. In the meantime I have some business with your friend next door…."

He seemed about to turn to leave but then he looked like something occurred to him.

How could other Arrancar say that Ulquiorra was expression-less? Orihime clearly saw glimmers of this and that in his eyes, and right now he was looking at her with self-satisfied delight again.

"I do what I please on assignments like these." His head cocked ever so slightly to the left and his expression took on a sudden guilelessness. His eyes no longer seemed haughty. They looked curious. "Would you like to watch?"

Orihime didn't understand what he meant, but she knew he was insinuating something terrible. She flung herself at Ulquiorra's chest and tore at his clothes with her nails. His jacket seemed to be as steely as his flesh. It hurt her fingers to clutch it. She was sobbing hysterically now. "What are you going to do to him? What are you going to do?"

Ulquiorra grabbed Orihime by the wrists and noticed the bracelet he had given her in the dangai. "Zael-Apollo didn't take this back?" He unsnapped the clasp, and the silver chain dropped into his palm. "Why didn't you try passing the barriers of this room with this on?"

Orihime swallowed a sob. "What?"

"Not too bright of you," said Ulquiorra. "And now you must stay here. You're clearly too upset for a proper reunion with your Quincy friend."

He let go her hands and--holding the bracelet--walked through the wall and into Ishida Uryuu's room.

----

Aizen's eyes were narrowed with seriousness when Gin entered the observatory.

Gin was smiling broadly, as always. "Permission to rip the stick out of Kaname's ass and to poke it into one of his blind eyes?"

When he got no answer, Gin leaned over Aizen's shoulder. "Anything spicy happening yet, Sousuke?"

Aizen leaned backwards in his large white chair and allowed Gin to rest a bony elbow on the shoulder of the king of Las Noches. "Zael-Apollo shut down communications and cameras in his laboratory again. It's his way of asserting his independence but his moment with Ulquiorra wasn't even recorded. Ulquiorra wasn't there for long but--"

"Ohhh, how unfortunate," whined Gin. "Zael is always so much fun."

"You'll have your fun soon," Aizen said. He flicked a switch to show Orihime kneeling on the floor and crying into her hands. "Ulquiorra is frightening the Quincy at the moment. Nothing interesting, the usual taunts.

"Your Number Four tells lies so well," Gin said. "That doesn't bother you?"

"Your lies are better," Aizen said. His face was relaxing into a slight smile. "Your tongue is more talented."

"You flatter me, Sousuke." Gin settled himself in the seat next to Aizen's. "I really don't understand why you wanted to hide the truth from your boy. You seem to think he's the most devoted creature in your universe."

"There's a simple answer, Gin. An intelligent being will fight humiliation more than death. Otherwise there would be no military suicides. Ulquiorra may suspect that he could die during this experiment, but that doesn't bother him. He is wary, though, of being humiliated."

"By what? He's your _darling_. Any unknown effects of the hougyoku shouldn't _matter_ to him. Limb loss, hair loss …unsightly rashes."

"If this experiment is successful, each of the two Quincy souls will suffer from a loss of identity. Ulquiorra would forever be subordinate to a mere human in order for me to manipulate spiritrons."

"Ohhh." Gin faked a shudder. "I don't even want to know the details myself. I skimmed your notes and it all sounds very disgusting. A little sexy sometimes but generally disgusting."

"This is a necessary experiment," Aizen said. "Not to mention a fascinating one."

"Really, Sousuke--you'd give up your most faithful Espada for one night's entertainment?"

"I would need the two of them, Gin. A Quincy-Arrancar hybrid is as yet beyond my grasp. This is a first step. Soul mutation." He flicked a switch to show Ishida's room and leaned closer to the monitor. "Why should I have told Ulquiorra that I expect two incomplete beings on the order of Grand Fisher or Aaroniero Aleri? I didn't think he would cooperate fully if he understood that he would be a humble prototype and that prototypes are always discarded."

"Alas, poor Number Four, you didn't trust him after all to make this veeeery special sacrifice." Gin shook his head slowly. "Fu-fu-fu, the things we do for you, Sousuke. You would think that Number Four would volunteer for the job based on its status-value alone."

"My army is devoted," Aizen said. "They would die for me but they are still individuals."

"Even _Number Four?"_

"Yes, I know. Yet another reason why he's perfect for this experiment. His apparent lack of personality. But it's there, Gin. Even in the most conscious-less man, it is there."

-----

The issue of self had never mattered to Ulquiorra before. He had never thought about who he was or who he wasn't beyond being Espada Number Four. He knew that he had preferences in clothes and that he enjoyed lying more than killing. He also knew that he wasn't like other Arrancar; most of them were soldiers with unsubstantiated bravado or bloodthirsty intent.

Ulquiorra entertained no foolish goals about challenging other Espada for a higher rank. He served Aizen-sama, that was all. It was the only practical thing to do; there was no one more powerful than Aizen-sama.

Aizen had promised all who followed him a release from the tortures of the Hollow soul; he had prophesized a universe reborn with justice for all Hollow. Ulquiorra, though, had never felt tortured and he had little interest in the particulars of this New Kingdom.

Ulquiorra believed that Aizen would be true to his promises, but he felt no investment in the matter. He believed in the thorough completion of his duties and in the reward of being stroked by Aizen's large palms while lying in Aizen's large bed. He didn't care if he was Aizen's favorite, his second lover, or his third.

But disappointment and rejection were things Ulquiorra had yet to experience.

"Who _are_ you?" asked Ishida Uryuu, and Ulquiorra didn't answer.

The human standing now before Ulquiorra looked young, but Ulquiorra was younger. The Quincy was a boy warrior, but Espada Number Four was a three-month-old being with a head full of facts and--despite the talents that made him an expert psychological torturer--no variety of personal memories beyond those three months. Apparently, this is how Aizen had wanted to create him. Ulquiorra's memories had been deliberately stifled.

Or so Zael had said. The story, as Ulquiorra heard it, made sense. Other Arrancar were motivated by hatred and resentment, but Aizen had wanted to create one with no easily manipulated or inflamed desires. A pure Arrancar, one whose only reason for existence was Aizen.

"I suppose your being a Quincy makes you my brother," Zael-Apollo had told Ulquiorra in the laboratory. "Espada usually don't have brothers. They're a mélange of Hollow unless there's Quincy in their make-up. I must say, you're more tolerable as a sibling than Ilforte was. One of the most interesting things about your arrogance is that it's inconspicuous. You're not conceited; you're convinced. Wish I were you. Really, brother. Overlooking your height deficiency, you're quite the Espada."

Even as a Hollow, Zael-Apollo had been privy to Aizen's plan of making a Quincy-Arrancar hybrid, and the would-be scientist had been eager to be a future subject in this experiment. He hadn't cared about the consequences; all Zael knew was that all transformations brought him farther and farther from an existence of mourning. An existence of blacks and grays, bitterness and sorrow over the murdered Quincy people.

"Trust me," Zael had said with lowered eyes and his pink lashes resting on his cheeks. "Whatever Aizen and the hougyoku did to your memories was a gift. A blank past is better than sex. Quincy were such pitiful beings. I still have the occasional nightmare."

Zael had been reborn an Arrancar only to discover that he was the beta for the Quincy experiment. He didn't mind; he had lingered in Aizen's bed for a time while Aizen searched for another Hollow, a smarter one, a crueler one, one whose reasons for becoming a Hollow had less to do with mourning the Quincy people than they did with wanting to detach himself from history.

"You claimed to be fed up with the boring cycle of reincarnation," Zael-Apollo had said. "Your sassy little Hollow self walked right up to our leader and asked how his vision of the universe was going to be different from the Shinigami's. You were fearless. No wonder he wanted to fuck you."

This was not the kind of information that Ulquiorra had wanted from Zael-Apollo, but the scientist seemed genuinely ignorant about how to prevent the experiment from ending with the Espada's death. Whether or not Ulquiorra would relinquish his Espada identity to obtain Quincy powers--that, Zael-Apollo couldn't predict. Too many variables involved. Maybe blowing up the hougyoku was the only way to stop the experiment from succeeding. But that might just kill the participants as well.

"You're in luck," Zael-Apollo had said. "Aizen won't know what I've told you. I periodically tamper with his surveillance just to get some privacy now and then."

"You do realize," Ulquiorra had said, "that I have to verify this information. The only way to do that is to question Aizen-sama."

"Aww, really? Would you do that to him? I think that our leader would be … disappointed to know that his Espada with the virgin memory has been tainted."

Zael, Ulquiorra had seen clearly, was nervous about what Aizen might do upon discovering who had spilled the secret.

"How about this, Number Four? I tell you what you need to know to emerge from this experiment unscathed, and you never tell Aizen about my little role in helping you survive."

A useless contract, because Ulquiorra could tell Aizen and still kill Zael anytime he wanted.

"But do as you please, Ulquiorra. Doesn't Aizen like it that way? Doesn't he give you absolute freedom?" Zael had the most effeminate voice. It had never annoyed Ulquiorra until that moment. "I must ask, though--do you seriously doubt me? Do you doubt at all that you were once a Quincy?"

"_Is it your job to stare at Aizen's prisoners?"_ The Quincy wasn't twitching under Ulquiorra's silent gaze. "Who _are_ you?"

"Ulquiorra Shiffer." The name carried a meaning now, but Ulquiorra didn't know why or what that meaning was. "Espada Number Four."

The rank didn't impress the boy. "Took you long enough to tell me your name. Now, can you tell me where Inoue-san is?"

The coat with the purple lining meant for Aizen-sama suited Ishida Uryuu. He had adjusted for its bigness by tying the purple sash two times around his waist. He was still armed with the weapons he'd carried before on a belt. Ulquiorra imagined him as an Espada. He looked like one. Maybe he would become one today.

"Let's get to the reason why I'm here." Ulquiorra broke the Quincy's gaze and spoke in soft, measured words. "I'm sure you've heard about the hougyoku. Maybe you saw it when Aizen-sama retrieved it from that female Shinigami?" Ulquiorra took his hand out of his pocket and there, in his palm, was the small gray ball. "There's a fake one in the original crystal casing. I carry the real one around with me most of the time."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because it is the truth." Ulquiorra raised his chin and knew that his voice sounded prenaturally calm, even for himself. "Since neither of us has significant reiatsu in this place, you were thinking your paltry human fighting skills could stand against my own, weren't you?"

The boy was good at not showing fear.

Ulquiorra raised his palm and the hougyoku higher. "Do you understand what sort of power stands before you?"

"You're lying," said Ishida. "You're always lying. I don't feel anything."

"Not yet." Ulquiorra closed his hand around the ball. "These walls have no effect on this particular weapon."

Even defenseless, the Quincy had an impressive glare. Did he think he was about to die? He was brave indeed.

The spaces between fingers that held the hougyoku glowed white, and then panels of blinding light shot past Ulquiorra's knuckles.

A glassy, weightless substance spread from one corner of the room to another, and Ishida Uryuu dropped the fierce expression to watch the crystalline panels of reflecting light multiply.

"It's like being in an ice cocoon, isn't it?" Ulquiorra returned the hougyoku to his pocket. "I've seen these before but this one is particularly large."

Ishida didn't speak, but his eyes were alert. Ulquiorra had seen battle-weathered Hollow face death with significantly less poise.

"Summon your bow, Quincy."

"What?"

"Summon your bow."

Ishida lifted his wrist and the eight-speared weapon materialized. The warrior's look returned to his face.

"We're to have a battle," Ulquiorra said. "But it is a battle that reaches no further than the perimeters of this room. Reiatsu-inhibiting walls, a hybrid-encouraging hougyoku, and our unique powers--this makes for something quite new."

Ishida shot a thousand arrows and they splintered behind Ulquiorra's back and fell in sparkling pieces to the floor.

Ulquiorra lifted his finger, launched a cero, and Ishida ducked.

There was no damage to the walls, the ceiling or anything else.

Hirenkyaku speed carried Ishida to his opponent's back. Ulquiorra felt a thin blade of energized reishi pressed against his neck, just above his Arrancar hole.

"Bring me to Inoue-san."

"You haven't figured it out yet?" Ulquiorra fingered the sleeping hougyoku in his pocket.

"We're absorbing one another's attacks," Ishida said. "That still doesn't mean I can't kill you."

Ulquiorra placed his hand on the blade held at his neck and pushed it through. There was a small spray of sparks but nothing happened otherwise. Ulquiorra's body was intact. The blade was disintegrated

"Explain this, Espada!" The words were shouted into Ulquiorra's ear. The boy had some nerve. "Where does the power go? I'll have you know that my blade--"

Ulquiorra spun around and shoved Ishida against the transparent wall. "Your blade? That toy that stole reiatsu? You'll have it back again." Ulquiorra grabbed Ishida by the shoulders and pushed him against the wall again for emphasis. "We're not stealing power from one another. We're exchanging it. We're exchanging the ways we express our power."

Ishida made a move for the holder inside the purple sash and before the weapon could fully materialize, Ulquiorra had grabbed the guard.

Ishida watched, eyes narrowed, as the blade lengthened and its edge sharpened.

Then Ulquiorra drove it through the Quincy's chest. Again, nothing happened other than Ishida's expression becoming one of undisguised alarm.

-----

Orihime could sense the movement in Ishida's room. Even though there was static interfering with the spiritual pressure, Orihime could tell that something more than a battle was going on.

And then it happened.

Blue and beige. Images of sky and earth. Vague patterns that shaped into recognizable objects. It was as if Ulquiorra was showing her a projection from his eyeball again, but this time the scene was not at all gruesome.

Children wearing the old-style clothes of picture-books were running towards a well. One of the children wore a familiar tunic. Oh, it was Ishida-kun! No it wasn't. It was a smaller face with larger eyes. Actually, the child didn't look like either Ishida-kun or Ulquiorra, but Orihime knew who it was.

It was Ulquiorra dressed like a Quincy.

Ulquiorra _was_ a Quincy.

The knowledge didn't surprise her, and then other visions followed.

"No Quincy here," said a woman. She was standing in front of the large-eyed boy. The child was dressed in brown knickers now and he wore an over-sized cap that shaded half his face. "Nuh-uh, no Quincy."

The two Shinigami at the door exchanged looks. "Fine," one said. "It's just a boy. Raise it to be decent, and you won't have any trouble."

"Obasan," said the boy when the Shinigami left. "Am I the last one?"

"I am the last one?" It was a question asked over and over by this child and that one in different frames, in different seasons. Orihime saw Ishida-kun ask it of his grandfather, and she smiled--for the first time in Las Noches--at the response.

Y_our people will never be gone, Uryuu_. _One day you will understand that_ _there are as _m_any souls in the universe as there are stars in the sky and they, the stars and the souls--_Q_uincy or not-- are all your people. One can connect them--the way the ancients drew _d_ragons on pinpoints of light._

Connections? All souls the same? Orihime could understand this, but she could also tell a star from a person, and she could distinguish a Quincy soul from other human souls. This ability didn't surprise her either. She saw Quincy souls drift from Soul Society and back. Specks of blue light, they dropped into oceans, glanced off the shiny beaks of finches in a forest, entered human bodies….

The little blue lights were scattered everywhere.

S_ee_, Orihime whispered to no one in particular, but she hoped Ishida-kun could hear her. E_verything's alright. Everyone's a good guy, and you'll all be together again. There's no _n_eed to be sad. There's no need to--_

The blue sky turned blank. Whiter than the white walls of Las Noches.

And all at once, Orihime could feel the wrongness happening in the next room.

Ishida's wrists were hurting him, and Ulquiorra was bleeding--not blood but something more essential.

Orihime saw the genocide of the Quincy in one frame. Blood saturated the vision before she could make out a single detail. And one by one by another and another, the blue lights with torn hearts that rose from the blood-masked scene and became masked souls.

Hollow.

So this was what it was like to be a Hollow? This is what Onii-chan had suffered? No, this suffering was colossal. Quincy Hollow after Quincy Hollow followed one another into a Menos. The Gillian type Shiro-san had talked about.

I_t's like a population of sadness in one monster._

Then Orihime saw the Adjunca type--a Menos composed of many heart-disintegrated human souls. But with the addition of one Quincy Hollow into one Adjunca, all other souls inside the Adjunca were overwhelmed.

U_lquiorra?_

Quincy grief…. Was Quincy grief that powerful a force in the sky of many stars and many souls?

Orihime dropped to her knees. _Ishida-kun, what is happening to you? _And Ulquiorra--?

Ishida's personal memories, in an incomprehensible blur, were throbbing behind Ulquiorra's eyes and Ulquiorra's sufferings, centuries of Hollow sufferings, were paralyzing Ishida's limbs.

They were going to kill one another. They were going to die somehow. Maybe not physical death but a terrible one nonetheless. Something to do with….

Soul-tampering?

That, and their bodies hurt. What was making their bodies hurt? Even if they didn't die, this force would continue violating their bodies somehow.

Without understanding completely, Orihime knew that a desecration of the body _does_ matter as much as a desecration of the soul. In the Living World, she saw Quincy mothers and their children speared through their throats. In Soul Society, Quincy bodies lay cut open on examination tables. This was Hueco Mundo, and the worst was yet to come.

I_shida-kun wouldn't want this. Ishida-kun needs me to stop this._

The masked motives and transmutations of Las Noches--they were trespasses against God.

-----

Ulquiorra palm covered Ishida's face and pushed. The back of Ishida's head should've slammed against the strange clear enclosure, but this time there was no sound.

"It's not hard." Ishida's lips moved against inside of the Ulquiorra's hand. His voice was soft and analytical. "I thought this place was impenetrably hard--like a diamond. It looks like we're inside a diamond, but now it feels like we're in water."

Ulquiorra saw a vision of a gemstone, a type unknown to him, with many facets and a colorless shine. He looked at Ishida again and saw a Hollow mask over the boy's face. No, not a mask. Ulquiorra's fingers. He moved his hand away.

"Are you still trying to kill me?" Ishida asked. "Or are you just trying to knock me out so that my memory can't send you any more images?"

W_ho am I?_ Ulquiorra asked the question of himself for the first time in his three-month-old life.

Ulquiorra had watched Arrancar being born. A Hollow would twitch and agonize inside a transparent womb, change shape and grow humanoid hands. Pieces of mask and skull would spray like hail inside the enclosure until it broke, spilling water all over Aizen's throne room floor.

Sometimes the energy from Aizen's experiments was too much for the Hollow and it died. Its half-formed, often limb-less torso would slide out with the water, and Aizen would raise a single finger and zap it into ash.

Tonight the experiment held two beings instead of one, and the reishi around them was spinning illogically. It belonged to neither Quincy nor Arrancar.

"You're not trying to kill me," said Ishida. "I think we're both in danger inside this thing."

The energy wasn't high enough yet. Ulquiorra needed the reishi high enough so that it would break the enclosure but not too high so that it would invert itself, mutating and possibly killing those inside.

"I need your power," Ulquiorra said to Ishida.

"What for?" Ishida had slumped to the floor and was sitting there, exhausted from the exchange of a half dozen invisible attacks. "Tell me what this place is. Tell me--" Ishida drew a large breath. "Tell me or I won't help you get out of here."

"The hougyoku created this place and continues to create it," said Ulquiorra. And then more loudly, for Aizen's sake: "Whatever happens here serves the purposes of Aizen-sama. Whether we want to live or die is inconsequential. There's nothing to be done."

But there was. Aizen's plans didn't matter to Ulquiorra at the moment--had they ever mattered? Ulquiorra wanted the experiment to fail, and he needed to find out how to do that. At the moment, the reishi was too low and too slow--it was, in fact, spinning at a rate that would ensure a successful transfer. Both Quincy and Arrancar spiritrons had begun to orbit one another like ancient planets accustomed to their cycles.

Had Zael-Apollo lied to him? Was getting the Quincy to draw over and over going to stop the experiment? The boy looked finished. So much for the famous Quincy spiritron-manipulating abilities. So much for the lauded power seen once in Soul Society.

T_his weakling, this human trash, is not my brother and comrade. There never has and _n_ever will be any connection between the Quincy people and Ulquiorra Shiffer._

_-----_

A high-pitched, vibrating scream. It leaked through a reiatsu-stifling wall, and Ishida and Ulquiorra could both hear it from inside their enclosure.

"Inoue-san?"

A swell of spiritual pressure shook the crystalline cocoon and knocked Ulquiorra and Ishida off their feet.

"Who else could it be?" Ulquiorra shut his eyes and was disappointed in Inoue Orihime. What was she doing? Whatever it was, the reishi was skyrocketing but too high.

And her screaming was definitely unnecessary.

"Are you alright?" Ishida was smashing his hands against the walls and meeting no resistance. The watery walls rose to cover his elbows and then ebbed when he pulled his hands away. "Inoue-san, talk to me."

She stopped screaming but the crystal enclosure didn't stop shaking. "I think she's trying to break us out," Ishida said to Ulquiorra.

Ulquiorra had overlooked the possibility that the foolish girl would act on her own.

For one moment in Orihime's room Ulquiorra had wanted to taunt her into lending her powers to the experiment. _"Would you like to watch?"_ had been an open invitation. If the girl's senses were sharp enough to see into a reiatsu-sealing room, then maybe she could sense the danger to her friend inside and would add her own powers to help raise the reishi. Aizen, who was expecting great things of Orihime, would be distracted by her attempts to break the crystal cocoon--maybe distracted enough to ignore Ulquiorra's attempts to foil the experiment.

"She's still got that bracelet on," Zael-Apollo had said. "I designed it to keep her presence known only to Arrancar but it probably increases her own sensing ability."

Ulquiorra had decided the risk of involving the girl was too great. What risk? He'd taken her bracelet and walked out of her room. Aizen wouldn't want the girl involved. Ulquiorra didn't need to get the girl involved.

"Inoue-san, are you there?" The Quincy sounded uncharacteristically panicked.

It was probably due to Quincy memories that were currently infecting his soul, but Ulquiorra was feeling concern for the girl's safety. No, it wasn't that. She was Aizen's prize. She was a more important experiment. Ulquiorra needed to keep her out of this.

The energy the girl was emanating was too much. She was going to smash the whole experiment like a soda can underfoot.

S_oda can. I know what a soda can is._ Ulquiorra's new store of human knowledge weakened his strategizing.

Another swell of power followed by a series of bursts. She was pounding on the door of her room and on the outside of the crystal. She was not at all in control of her power.

"_Inoue Orihime._" Ulquiorra spat the name. "What are you trying to do?"

S_ave you_, came her voice inside his head. _Save you both by destroying the hougyoku._

The hougyoku? Was that even possible? Zael Apollo had said--

Ulquiorra's voice was still calm. "Inoue Orihime, this isn't helping." Even if it was, Aizen needed to know that the loyal Ulquiorra was still trying to follow the experiment through. "Stop right now, Inoue Orihime. You have to curtail your powers now. If you don't stop your friend will die. If you do stop … " Ulquiorra's persuasive abilities faltered. "If you stop, he may have an actual opportunity to kill me."

I _care about you both._

Ishida's eyes widened. So the boy could hear the girl speaking as well?

Y_ou don't care about me, _answered Ulquiorra before he could stop himself.

A cracking sound. A clear hexagonal plate the size of a Hollow mask but the weight of a sugar cube fell on Ulquiorra's shoulder. The enclosure's structural density was changing. The girl's powers were impressive.

W_hy shouldn't I care about you? You're a person. And I can save you._

"Inoue-san?" The Quincy was looking around for the source of the illusion. "The real Inoue-san wouldn't say things like that about you, Espada."

Ulquiorra sensed that the skeptical boy would be asking a lot of questions, but Ulquiorra had no time for them. What mattered now was not being killed when the crystal cocoon was smashed from the outside.

"Quincy." Ulquiorra grabbed Ishida by the upper arm. "Tell her to be quiet and to stop annoying us with her powers."

The Quincy didn't appear ready to do anything that an Arrancar ordered.

-----

"Orihime's power was, predictably, inspired by the experiment," Aizen said. "But she's attacking the wrong pressure points and too randomly. She'll never break the enclosure."

"I don't think she wants to," said Gin. "I think she's after your little magic ball."

"Maybe. But the hougyoku is inactive in Ulquiorra's pocket. Nothing can affect it when it's inactive."

"Look." Gin's voice dropped to an excited whisper. "Your boy has the Quincy by the arm. Sparks should fly, mmm?"

"If you don't tell her to stop interfering, she could die," Ulquiorra said to Ishida. "We could all die." Ulquiorra voice deepened. "She's dead, Quincy, unless you make her stop."

It wasn't the truth, but it wasn't _not_ the truth. Ulquiorra didn't know what the effects of Orihime's powers on the hougyoku would be.

Surprisingly, threatening the girl's life worked.

"Inoue-san," began Ishida. His voice was soft and patient. "Inoue-san, please."

Yesterday, the boy's face would have puzzled Ulquiorra, but today he recognized the tenderness there.

Was some of Ishida's human-ness already in Ulquiorra's mind? Where was the Quincy-ness? There was nothing more distasteful than having something human or Quincy inside his body. Having entered this experiment was giving Ulquiorra a grasp on his identity--his identity was whatever he was losing.

"Inoue-san," said Ishida. "Please stop. There's a time for everything. We'll get out of this, I promise. Let me handle this Arrancar and then--"

E_gotistical even on the brink of death, _Ulquiorra thought.

"Let me handle Ulquiorra and then I'll come back for you."

Again, surprisingly, the girl didn't argue with the request

A_lright. _

"I'll be back for you," Ishida reiterated.

Ulquiorra noticed Ishida opening and closing his hands as if his joints ached

E_veryone will be alright, Ishida-kun. I know that if I believe in a happy ending instead of just stupidly hoping for it, it will come true._

It took another few moments, but the spirit vibrations from the adjoining room diminished and then stopped altogether. The reishi, unfortunately, dipped too low again, too low to break the enclosure from the inside. The girl's voice was gone. Ulquiorra couldn't sense her anymore.

Neither could Ishida, apparently, but he looked as if he was still listening for the voice.

"Inoue-san?"

"Forget her, you have to fight me if we're going to stand a chance of--" Ulquiorra was about to draw his zanpakutou and expedite further reiatsu-raising, but something stopped him.

The look on the Quincy's face went beyond human affection and concern for a friend. Ishida's guard was gone and under ordinary circumstances, Ulquiorra could have killed him ten times over before the blink of an eye.

"Quincy."

Ishida responded, turning his face to Ulquiorra without a word.

He looked impossibly young. Like someone who had never been reincarnated. Like a new Arrancar still shining inside a crystalline womb. The Quincy's eyes gleamed. His cheeks flushed and his mouth was a pale line. The sight of that vulnerable mouth made Ulquiorra do something he had never initiated before.

He leaned forward and--in imitation of Aizen Sousuke with each of his newborn Arrancar--Ulquiorra took Ishida's face in his hands and kissed him.

T_BC_


	3. Part Three

Diaspora

by debbiechan

Disclaimer: Kubo Tite owns Bleach; Bleach owns my soul.

Description: Hard R. A story about identity. Can Ulquiorra's allegiance ever waver? Can Ishida's? Aizen, Gin, Tousen, Orihime, Zael-Apollo.

Warnings: Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc, (mild) dark-fic-ness, (not overly explicit) sexual weirdness, mind fuckery, a hougyoku with erotic powers, and a long author's note at the end.

A/N: This story, written the week chapter 272 appeared, begins with the presumption that Renji and Ishida were defeated by Zael-Apollo.

T_hose of you who know my drabbles will tell now which one this story came from; it's _r_eally undone but you can recognize it. There's another tidbit from a fic by me in this _c_hapter, and I'll give you a drabble if you can tell me what it is._

Part Three

For Aizen this is just a game Ulquiorra, chapter 249 

"Oh my," said Gin as Ulquiorra kissed the Quincy. "I told him not to do that. Look at him cheating on you, Sousuke."

"I didn't expect," Aizen said, "that either subject would be able to resist the inherent sensuality of this experiment."

"He's kissing back. So much for all those noble declarations of I will rescue you, fair maiden, eh? I don't think the Quincy's thinking at all about our Orihime-chan at the moment."

The Quincy's pale human face was locked with the white Arrancar one, and rolling movements of tongue showed through his cheeks.

"They're not going to meld into one big blob of Quincy, are they?" Gin rose from his chair and approached the monitor with acute interest. "Didn't you mention side-effects? One of them wouldn't happen to be impotency, would it?"

Aizen was turning knobs and flicking switches. "Gin…." He wasn't in the mood for Gin's humor.

"I'd really hate for Number Four to lose his one pleasure in Las Noches," Gin went on. "The only time I ever see him without that dour look on his face is when you've got him by the balls… um, like right now."

"The spiritual pressure within the hougyoku shell has quadrupled," Aizen said softly. "This is good, very good. Even Wonderweiss' creation didn't register power this high."

-----

Arrancar and Quincy dropped to the floor and clutched one another on the floor. Ulquiorra rubbed his cheek against the top of Ishida's head, and Ishida's face nuzzled in the crook of Ulquiorra's arm.

_Gin must be laughing_.

Ulquiorra kissed Ishida's smooth hair and felt his Arrancar lips of hierro chafing. Arrancar skin eroding so easily? _I'm losing myself and my power and my identity_. The Quincy's fingers opened and closed, opened and closed, grabbing folds of the Espada coat and dropping them.

"Do you want to live, Quincy? Let go of me."

"It's not me." The Quincy was breathing hard.

"Put your arms down. You disgust me."

But Ulquiorra didn't know if he himself could break free.

Right before he had cupped Ishida's face in his hands, a storm of reishi had re-ignited around the pair. At the kiss, Ulquiorra had felt the experiment's outcome sealed. Now, the spirit power was impossibly high and maybe death was imminent.

The erotic force pushing the pair into one another was like what Ulquiorra had experienced before in Aizen's proximity. The pressure was like Aizen himself, all-encompassing but not insistent. It encouraged submission, but it was not irresistible. No, it could be freeing to defy it, to walk forwards as into a strong wind.

Gin wants a display of helplessness? He's not going to get it.

Whatever exchange of Quincy and Arrancar memory (Ulquiorra refused to acknowledge it as soul) had already occurred, it wasn't too late to avoid death. If after the experiment, Ulquiorra felt that he was more Quincy than he wanted to be, then he would kill himself.

That would be his declaration of identity right there: _I choose not to be._

But at the moment, if he allowed himself to die in this strange womb, he would take Ishida Uryuu with him.

Why did that matter?

I'm not going to die with a Quincy in my arms.

"Do you want to live, Quincy?"

Ishida's pushed himself away with his palms. He whimpered as if in pain--a pitiful sound, and one Ulquiorra thought the boy should be more ashamed of than of the shape pressing Ulquiorra's thigh.

"Resist," Ulquiorra ordered. "There's nothing to be ashamed about unless you come in your pants like human trash. Right now, you're raising the spirit power here to an intolerable level--we're going to…"

Ishida fell on him again, and his mouth opened against Ulquiorra's cheek. Quincy teeth ran against an Arrancar jaw, and Ulquiorra, who never shivered, shivered.

"Resist," whispered Ulquiorra, and in direct contradiction of his order, raised one leg over the boy's leg, swept one hand into the boy's hair.

When the Arrancar's eyes met the Quincy's, he saw the pleasure welling there.

Ishida's eyes were wincing, top black eyelashes stuck together and the bottom ones beaded with tears.

"You're going to burst apart like some simplistic life form unless you resist, Quincy."

The Quincy bared his teeth.

"Like a deep water fish brought too quickly to the surface of its ocean." Ulquiorra wondered where he got that memory. "Do you want to die like that, Quincy?"

Then Ishida let out a growl of resistance and tried to pull away. Ulquiorra, feeling preposterously unlike himself, hugged the thin frame closer.

Ishida rolled Ulquiorra onto his back, lifted him a centimeter off the floor and shook him by the shoulders.

"Who," he asked through gritted teeth, "are you?"

Ulquiorra thrust his pelvis forward and felt his hipbones smack Ishida's. Whoever you want me to be, he thought, but at the moment he felt he might be Aizen. Paternal, experienced, the one with the secret wisdom. His hand reached to massage Ishida's shoulder. "Don't fight it." Death was fine. Death was preferable to facing Aizen again.

"Don't fight it."

Brother.

But the boy fought. He let go Ulquiorra whose mask hit the floor with a cracking sound.

My mask broke. That's not supposed to happen.

Ishida scooted away, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyebrows as if doing that would erase what was happening.

Zael Apollo said that most forms of sexual expression would facilitate the change, but had just this been enough to--?

Ulquiorra looked to see how the Quincy was faring.

For one moment Ishida's face was distorted with self-loathing, and then, as easily as a line in the sand would disappear under the wind, the boy's face didn't care. It smoothed into an expression that looked more like sleepy contentment than lust. His lips parted. "Ahhhhh." His arms fell around Ulquiorra's neck.

Ulquiorra felt it too. A floating sensation. A respite from the agony of transformation. Was it done? Was the boy now an Arrancar and the Arrancar a simple Quincy?

The crystalline cocoon still held. A brightness refracting from the glasses in Ishida's hand hurt Ulquiorra's eyes. He took the glasses with no protest from the limp Quincy and put them in the pocket with Orihime's bracelet.

Since when had Ulquiorra ever felt pain in his eyes?

So this had been Aizen's plan.

A trivial plan, Zael-Apollo had said, but one that Aizen would pursue merely to fend off boredom. Unlike Kurosaki Ichigo--who was already hybridized and always on the verge of shifting allegiances--the proud and wholly human Ishida Uryuu could never be convinced to lend his unique powers to Aizen's army. Instead, Ulquiorra's Quincy soul would be awakened, and Ulquiorra would learn how manipulate spiritrons and summon a bow.

It would be a degrading trial, one with little chance of success. But Aizen wanted a loyal Quincy in his court and that Quincy was to be the ex-Espada Number Four.

And Ishida Uryuu couldn't, in all likelihood, be persuaded to become an Espada either. The plan was to keep him prisoner and to bring Ulquiorra to his room each time Aizen felt like re-testing the experiment.

A Quincy-Arrancar hybrid within three or four months time? Possible. If not, it made no difference to Aizen. The Winter War was as well as won.

Ulquiorra pushed Ishida's body off his chest, and the Quincy's eyes rolled back into his head.

It wasn't over.

"Quincy," said Ulquiorra with a fierceness he had never heard in his own voice. "I need more reishi. Summon your power."

Ishida didn't move.

Ulquiorra abandoned the body on the floor and stood up. He felt for the crack in his mask--it was an insignificant fissure at the back of his head.

"Aizen-sama."

A disembodied voice purred through sound-altering fractions of the crystal womb. Aizen sounded like a machine. "What is it, Ulquiorra?"

"The experiment failed. The Quincy is dead."

-----

Orihime had fallen asleep. She had been kneeling on the floor with her cheek against a couch cushion and then, bewildered, exhausted, unwilling to bear the suspense from the drama in the next room, she'd drifted into a light state of unconsciousness.

"Well, well, what have you done, little human girl? Did you wreck Aizen-sama's experiment?"

Zael-Apollo stood, arms crossed over his chest, and cast a thin shadow over the white couch.

"Let her sleep," whispered Aizen.

"Let her sleep," Gin's even softer whisper mocked Aizen's. "So says the man who wanted the child exposed to scenes of ruthless violence. What is it now? You want her to sleep so she can have terrible dreams?"

"I want her to grow accustomed to our world." Aizen stepped closer and looked at his captive with shiny-eyed interest. "She's going to be with us for a long time, and I couldn't have her fainting over every drop of blood shed on these white floors. She's a quick study." He leaned forward so that his own shadow fell over her. "Orihime-chan, we'll win your soul piece by piece. You'll be so happy here."

Zael was pointing a detection device at one corner of the room. "Done," he announced. "The reiatsu repression wasn't affected. The walls seem fine. Are you sure you don't want me to give her the once-over."

"Later," said Aizen.

"My bracelet is missing." Zael gestured to Orihime's wrist.

"We saw Ulquiorra take it," Gin said. "I, for one, had no idea that he fancied little baubles like that."

"Make him give it back to me," said Zael. "I worked hard on that device and there are still so many things to adjust on it."

"I'll send him to your laboratory," said Aizen. "His powers of regeneration seem to have restored the crack in his mask and negated all traces of Quincy ability transferred to him, but nonetheless, I'd like you to give him a thorough examination--"

"To the best of my ability." Zael-Apollo looked annoyed. "I'm not God. I can't read his mind, and you are aware, Aizen-sama, that soul manipulation is not my forte. That's your area."

"I'll be examining Ulquiorra later," said Aizen with a slight smile. "In the meantime you need experience with the hybridization process. Maybe you will be the one to discover how to successfully hybridize Quincy into Arrancar."

"Am I going to be granted access to the Quincy's body?"

"I don't see why not." Aizen was still looking at Orihime.

"And I don't see why you didn't zap the sad shell of a once hearty boy into oblivion, Sousuke. You're always allowing bodies to lie around and expecting me to clean up."

"Gin," said Aizen. "You have absolutely no interest in science, do you?"

"None," said Gin, and the three white-robed men left Orihime's room.

-----

Orihime dreamed her first dream since coming to Las Noches.

Kurosaki-kun was coming to save her, and he was running across a long stretch of grassy bank. The Onose River ran alongside him in the other direction. Tatsuki stood in one place with a red dragonfly on her finger, and Tatsuki said (as she had one school day when girls were talking about their dreams and trying to interpret them), "Ichigo says he dreams about very boring things, like walking to school or taking a nap."

The boring, ordinary world was a wonderful place, and Kurosaki-kun should stay in it, but no, he was running, running to save her.

Stop, Kurosaki-kun!

In a state of drifting to awareness, Orihime told herself that she was in Las Noches and that she was just having a dream. Precognition had never been one of her powers, and the dream about Kurosaki-kun running wasn't like what she's experienced while trying to break the hougyoku. That had been a weird connection to Ulquiorra and Ishida-kun and all the Quincy. An anomaly. Usually Orihime couldn't see through walls and into peoples' pasts.

Kurosaki-kun isn't coming to save me. He's safe at home. Please, let them all be safe at home.

She was asleep again. The colorless sand rolled over her in a wave, taking her to a dark, churning world and then bringing her back to the sunlight. Wave by wave, she was rolling towards a shore. A beach in Las Noches? She smiled in her sleep. There were colorful umbrellas scattered about and pop music played--several songs at once, and it sounded jangly and disorienting but nice.

Ulquiorra was there, standing on the shore. His long white coat wet with seafoam and his hand outstretched. Orihime thought he looked a little less white-skinned--maybe he'd gotten a summer tan?

The closer Orihime got to shore, she could see that Ulquiorra held a bracelet. It wasn't the one he'd given her in the dangai. It was a Quincy bracelet, a shinier silver--but what hung from it wasn't the Quincy cross--a five-pointed star?

The sky and sand melded and fell over her in and an avalanche swept her away. She couldn't breathe and she was drenched with the colorless landscape. When she could stick her head out of the sand, the world had changed.

Five-pointed stars everywhere. On closer inspection, they were men, women and children lying with arms and legs spread. The fifth point was the head on each. A million, million white stars on the sand. They turned into twinkling blue souls and drifted away.

Into a black sky.

T_hey're all dead and gone_, she thought. _They're never coming back here_. She reached her hand out--but it was like trying to catch a red dragonfly.

I_shida-kun, come back_.

She could catch the dragonflies spinning around her head. She could. Ishida-kun wasn't going to die for her sake. That would be wrong and a very unhappy ending to this dream.

She stopped grabbing at the insects and held her hand out like Onii-san used to do by the Onose River.

A dragonfly alighted on her wrist.

-----

Ulquiorra stood over the body. The Quincy looked tired but not ill and certainly not dead.

A sandstorm was still blowing past the window of the room.

It had been the only way to stop the experiment. Ulquiorra had asked Aizen to break the enclosure created by the hougyoku, and then there had been a silence longer than Ulquiorra had expected.

"Wait," Aizen had said, "I'll go with you"--which made Ulquiorra think that Aizen had nodded to Gin to perform the deed and then changed his mind. Having Aizen himself come to inspect the area had given Ulquiorra a little thrill.

He had never lied to Aizen-sama before.

The reiatsu in the enclosure had been in a stasis; the experiment could have continued for who knows how much longer. Death was no longer a threat, but Ulquiorra wanted to stop everything that was happening. Conveniently, the Quincy had fainted.

So, hoping that Aizen would recognize that there was no point in subjecting the one subject standing to further soul manipulation, Ulquiorra had told his Aizen-sama that the Quincy was dead.

It was a lie, but it could be explained away as a mistake--the Quincy's reiatsu was imperceptible.

At the scene, Aizen talked about Inoue Orihime's unusual part in the experiment and he had shown very little interest in Ulquiorra, the Quincy, or the crystalline form that he broke apart with one gesture of his finger. Water had spilled to the corners of the room. At this point, Ulquiorra had expected that the boy would wake up, coughing. Gin and Aizen had seen the body and they weren't questioning the Quincy's death.

But as water swept past Ishida's nostrils, Ulquiorra had felt anxiety. _Should I kick him to his side so he doesn't drown?_

Then Gin had raised his hand to disintegrate the body, and Ulquiorra had felt _don't! No!_

Ulquiorra and the boy were still connected.

"No, Gin," Aizen had said, "Save him for me and Zael-Apollo."

After the king of Las Noches had called for his scientist, Espada Number Eight, to meet in Orihime's room, Ulquiorra had stayed in Ishida's room, presumably to resume his guarding Orihime after the inspection team was finished. He had heard Zael-Apollo's annoying voice, even as it whispered, in the next room. Live body or dead body, the Quincy was probably going to get dissected.

The window in the Quincy's room showed an evening on the verge of night. The sandstorm had passed. The landscape, glinting with quartz trees, was visible now.

Ulquiorra kicked the Quincy, not hard, in the ribs. "Are you alive?"

Ishida's eyes opened. Hair dripping wet from the womb water, he sat up. When he raised his eyes, the look he gave Ulquiorra was defiant.

"I'm not you, Espada." Ishida rubbed one of his wrists. "I still have my powers."

"Good," said Ulquiorra. "I don't want your powers."

"I feel completely like myself," Ishida said. He didn't look it.

Ishida stared. Ulquiorra stared.

"Why," asked Ishida, "are you wearing my glasses?"

Ulquiorra took them off. "I wanted to test if my vision had been disturbed by the experiment."

"Was it?"

"No." Ulquiorra handed the glasses to Ishida. "I'm reporting to our science laboratory to see how much of your loathsome Quincy-ness remains in me. I may be regenerating over your spiritrons, but I won't know for certain until the laboratory examines me."

"Why would anyone want to do this?" The Quincy was removing his wet coat. His eyes were indignant, but his hands looked shaky. "Was it Aizen?"

"In the meantime," Ulquiorra continued, ignoring the Quincy's questions, "I'm allowing you access to Inoue Orihime."

Ishida's fierce look evaporated.

"I know you want to see the girl; I'll let you see the girl. Don't doubt, however, that the room will be sealed, and you will have no chance of escaping with her." Ulquiorra, hands in pockets, walked towards the far wall. "I won't be gone long. I'm giving you twelve minutes."

"What?" Ishida didn't believe it. "How?"

Ulquiorra pressed a button on the wall and part of the wall rose. "You will go from this room…." His tone could've been mistaken as sadness but Ulquiorra recognized it as his natural voice. He pressed another button. "And you will go into hers."

Ishida didn't look like he trusted the Arrancar one bit. Nonetheless he said "thank you," and Ulquiorra wondered if the Quincy had once had a culture built on excessive politeness.

"You have twelve minutes. When I return, it will be to take you to your own examination."

-----

She looked like she had fallen asleep while kneeling to pray. Her arms pillowed her head on the couch cushion, and her legs were crossed beneath her.

The fact that there was no bed in the room told Ishida that this was a holding area; Aizen did not mean to keep her here night after night. Or…. Ishida couldn't deny the possibility that she was to have been killed after serving some usefulness but before she could even get sleepy at the end of one day.

The clothes she wore were beautiful; she looked like a princess. She also looked like every Arrancar Ishida had encountered in Las Noches. The clothes suggested that the Arrancar wanted to make her one of their own. What would her role be and why would Aizen want to keep a healer with undeveloped powers over Kurosaki, a fighter with proven strengths? Aizen had sent Renji, Rukia, Chad, and Kurosaki back into the windy path that was Garganta. Ishida had been held for some obscene purpose--the weird experiment with Ulquiorra. Was Inoue-san going to be subjected to a similar trial? When she was taken from this bed-less room would it be to….

Not to Aizen's bed. Please not there.

Ishida had not had a single moment yet to even begin to recover from the sexual disorientation of earlier. A visceral memory of helplessness resonated in his body. If not for the simple fear of dying, he would've abandoned himself to the feeling, transported God knows where inside a delirium of pleasure.

He, Ishida Uryuu, the person so aware of how he held his body in anyone's presence and who always wanted to appear adult and poised--he had been writhing like an animal over some wetness on the ground.

His hair was still dripping.

What had happened? From the scattered imagery of Hollow being shot down by arrows (had he felt the pain of those arrows?) and from an ache in the pulse points he used to draw his Quincy power, Ishida knew that the humiliation was connected to his Quincy heritage and identity somehow. And it had been inspired by something….

Something that he felt about Inoue-san.

She looked so innocent asleep but Ishida clutched his fists and imagined handfuls of her ginger hair inside them. Kissing her. He took a step back…. And another.

The memory of the Arrancar's bony fingers pressing into his shoulders made him close his eyes.

-----

"It's ruined," Zael-Apollo said and tossed the bracelet over his shoulder.

Ulquiorra appeared behind him and caught the bracelet mid-air with one hand. "I didn't think you were this sloppy and indiscreet with your inventions. Anyone could've picked this up and--"

"Anyone can have it," Zael-Apollo said. "The experiment degenerated its basic composition. Or maybe your putting it in the same pocket as the hougyoku caused it to react oddly. In any event, it's screwed."

"And totally useless to you?"

"I'll rebuild another from scratch." Zael narrowed his eyes at Ulquiorra. "I thought you understood that prototypes are dispensable. Now, shoo. I couldn't tell anything about your own spiritual composition from the scans."

"Such a cunning device," Ulquiorra said, pocketing the bracelet. "Imagine every Arrancar wearing one--visible to one another but as far as the enemy is concerned, an encroaching unseen army."

Zael-Apollo pushed his glasses up his nose and looked annoyed. "Everyone expects me to work quicker than I can. One simply can't rush the mass production of my inventions. They have to be tested. I can outfit one room with reiatsu-draining material but not the whole exterior of Las Noches. Flaws would be unacceptable if I did that; Aizen would kill me if anything went wrong."

"Aizen hasn't killed anyone yet," Ulquiorra noted. "Not any Hollow or Arrancar, that is."

Zael was still huffing. "I couldn't possibly provide every soldier in Aizen's army with a bracelet rendering him invisible. And besides, the thing is useless. I believe those with exceptional sensing ability can see right through it, and--oh damn, suppose one of you Quincy got near it with your spiritron-sucking abilities. You'd invert its whole function."

"Oh?" Ulquiorra fingered the hougyoku in one pocket and the bracelet in the other. "You're a Quincy. Aren't you sure that it isn't you affecting your inventions with your bizarre heritage?"

"Look, I'm not the one who's giving off Quincy sparks from having had his soul half-melded with a pure-breed."

"I'm going to be fine. Aizen-sama said I would be, and he's the superior scientist." Ulquiorra raised his chin.

"Then let the superior scientist examine that half-dead Quincy. I'm sure I won't find anything. And besides, Aizen-sama will probably be disappointed if I cut up the specimen before he gets a chance to look at it."

"Whether the Quincy is examined by you or not is for Aizen-sama to decide."

And with that, Ulquiorra sped with sonido out of the room.

-----

Forget twelve minutes--Ishida felt like he'd been staring at Inoue-san for a lifetime.

He had tried and tried to think his way out of their mutual predicament, and he couldn't see how they could escape Las Noches. They were stuck here until some fortuitous opportunity presented itself. Inoue-san, a member of the Aizen's forces. And himself--Ishida looked down at his damp white tunic--he was only steps away from allying himself with the Arrancar as well, wasn't he? The experiment--whatever had been its ultimate goal, Ishida was sure that it had been leeching his Quincy abilities from him. Maybe soon, there would be a repeat experiment….

Ishida saw himself in Ulquiorra's arms again. Entranced by the frighteningly white flesh, the unmerciful kisses on the top of his head, the voice that didn't come from the Arrancar's mouth but sounded in Ishida's mind:

Brother.

And there was something else. Had he dreamed it while lying on the ground or had Ulquiorra sent him a transmission during the experiment? If the Arrancar found enough Quincy in himself after it was all over, he planned on … destroying himself.

It made sense. Losing one's essential self was the same as dying.

Ishida rubbed his wrist. His Quincy bracelet was still there, the five-spoked medallion apparently unharmed. There was no reason, Ishida told himself with a sinking feeling, to even begin to contemplate suicide. He had to stay here to protect Inoue-san. Even if he had to pretend to be Aizen's faithful follower.

Twelve minutes? It made no sense, but Ishida had the feeling he was not going to see Inoue-san again. Not for a long time.

Maybe never?

He walked towards her. He knelt beside the sleeping beauty and put his arm lightly around her shoulders. Sweet Inoue-san. Of all the people in the Living World, she didn't deserve this fate. She was supposed to be laughing with her friend Arisawa-san over ice cream. She was supposed to go to university and awe her professors with the intelligence people never expected her to have. She was supposed to finally catch Kurosaki's attention, and then they would marry and have children and….

Ishida brushed a lock of hair away from her eyes. His face moved close enough to hers to see the single clear tear-track on her cheek.

One chaste kiss wouldn't be wrong, would it? He was never going to see her again.

He was so close to her soft, regular breathing sounding like roaring in his ears. He felt dizzy.

This is shameless. This is selfish.

Ishida pulled away. He took his arm off the sleeping girl but stayed kneeling next to her. What was he trying to prove? He couldn't feel that way about her, could he? It was selfish. He had recently been used, so he wanted to use someone in return?

He was ashamed of his defeatist thoughts as well. Would Kurosaki Ichigo resign himself so easily to the enemy? Even if Kurosaki couldn't think himself out of a situation, he would smash through it. Damn Kurosaki.

"Damn Kurosaki," he said out loud. "I'm the one who's going to save you, Inoue-san."

"EEK!"

"Ahh!"

Orihime had bolted straight up at the sound of Ishida's voice and screamed. Ishida had half-gasped, half-yelped in response.

Orihime put her hand to her chest and breathed hard. As her bosom rose and fell. Ishida watched the tiny hand ride her breathing and didn't believe that he would question his sexual identity again. How could such a simple dress with such a high neckline look so…womanly? The inappropriate thought sped through his mind that he would have to sew Inoue-san a dress like that when they returned home.

"Ishida-kun, what are you--how did you get here?" Her eyes shone with happiness. She was about to touch his face with her hand when a part of the wall rose.

It was Ulquiorra.

And just like the first time he had entered Orihime's room unannounced, she startled. She had already screamed seconds ago so this time all she could manage was a tiny yip of fear.

"It's alright, Inoue-san," Ishida said. "This Arrancar is the one who let me see you."

"Ulquiorra, Espada Number Four," Ulquiorra corrected him. "And your time is up, Quincy."

"Time?" Orihime still looked sleepy and confused. "Where did the dragonflies go?"

Ishida stared at her, but Ulquiorra ignored her and held up a sparkling object.

"My bracelet," Orihime said.

But Ulquiorra was offering it to Ishida.

TBC

17


	4. Chapter 4

Diaspora

by debbiechan

Disclaimer: Kubo Tite owns Bleach; Bleach owns my soul.

Description: Hard R. A story about identity. Can Ulquiorra's allegiance ever waver? Can Ishida's? Aizen, Gin, Tousen, Orihime, Zael-Apollo.

Warnings: Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc, (mild) dark-fic-ness, (not overly explicit) sexual weirdness, mind fuckery, a hougyoku with erotic powers, and a long author's note at the end.

A/N: This story, written the week chapter 272 appeared, begins with the presumption that Renji and Ishida were defeated by Zael-Apollo.

----------

Helio82 from and Quaedam from LJ get drabbles because they recognized the drabble and fic origins of this fic. I'm so happy because that means someone's paying attention to my writing! Name your poison in a comment or write Four

A_s long as you walk by my side, any enemy that may stand up to us… shall never exist_. A_izen, chapter 245_

The phenomenon didn't go unnoticed by Aizen's surveillance crew until some hours later, but it was old gossip in the crafts cellars by the time Aizen, Gin, and Zael-Apollo had left Orihime's room:

All through Hueco Mundo, for a short moment, some Hollow and a few Arrancar had fallen, conscious but disabled, with legs apart and arms spread wide. They'd risen to tell about bombardment with images and feelings that seemed not their own. Memories of a genocide. Shinigami with blank, professional faces who drew zanpakutou and slashed their swords through human children.

Some of these Hollow and Arrancar recognized the slaughter of the Quincy; most did not. Those who had fallen told those who hadn't fallen that the strange mass paralysis meant that the enemy had a new weapon. A few wondered if Aizen was to be trusted anymore. A few recognized a sorrow as infinite as the desert sky of Hueco Mundo and knew why they had turned into bitter, angry spirits.

One Hollow, a fierce specimen with pinchers on her skull, a feared and respected spirit who, when raiding the Living World, liked to feast upon the souls of long-haired, wasp-waisted post-pubescent boys--she remembered with sudden clarity having been a Quincy girl in a small village. Her recently murdered spirit had hidden under a bed in a deserted house and waited for her family to return. They never returned…. This fierce Hollow hadn't known about Soul Society as a child; she couldn't know her sister and parents were there. Now, knowing that Aizen's army opposed Soul Society's army, the fierce Hollow doubted. Should she follow Aizen? Was there any way to see her family again?

The inhabitants of Las Noches, those most loyal to Aizen in all Hueco Mundo, didn't doubt or fear, but every Arrancar who watched another Arrancar go through the fit of paralysis whispered the news around. Not a one reported the incident to Aizen. It would've been a report worthy of praise and reward because the paralysis incident was unprecedented, but the Arrancar seemed to sense that delaying discovery of the phenomenon would benefit all. Would the fallen Arrancar be destroyed for being weak? Would the rest be interrogated and threatened? Would Gin call his short sword on random Arrancar or blast at random unless Aizen got the information he wanted?

In the cloth-spinning and dress-making corner of the Las Noches crafts cellar, the ex-Quincy tailor told his comrades about his vision.

"The Quincy were a people of extraordinary abilities," he said. "They were self-less and brave. They saved the souls of people outside their tribe. For this, they were slaughtered."

The artisans gasped.

"Why are they speaking to Hueco Mundo now?" one asked. "Does it mean that the Quincy will rise again--maybe a new legion of Quincy under Aizen's command?"

"He brags," said one Arrancar. "As long as I've been in the cellar, he's said this or that about the Quincy and how perfect that past was." The Arrancar then addressed the tailor.

"C'mon. You were hundreds of separate souls once. They all suffered tragedies. Why aren't these souls crying out for justice now too?"

"Many people have been killed in large groups over the course of human history," one Arrancar observed. "Genocide is nothing special."

"Oh aren't you the one with the knowledge," came one voice. "Is that true?" asked another.

"Genocide," the tailor Arrancar said, "is a human past-time, yes. Humans have been killing one another since the beginning of time. But the Quincy--" He paused to bite a thread as he sewed. "The Quincy were the first tribe to be attacked from the Heavens and wiped out by killed by the gods."

"Big deal," one Arrancar said. "Why does the way one was murdered matter? What about the other souls inside us and inside you--?"

"All other souls inside me are voiceless," he said. "Their accumulated bitterness can not match one Quincy tailor's passion for revenge."

"Against the Shinigami?" the artisans asked.

"Who else?" The Arrancar's finger pinched details into the bodice of a white haori that had been ordered for the princess of Las Noches. "Only Aizen-sama can destroy them. Only Aizen-sama can silence Evil and put an end to the injustices of Soul Society."

Zael-Apollo Grantz was glad that all cameras in his lab had been turned off when the visions came. He would never hear the end of it from the other Espada, and already Zael was considered undeserving of his rank because he disliked fighting. Noitra, especially, liked to bow over the fey little scientist and ask, "Zael, what color is your hair, really? Is your special ability scaring an opponent to death with the color of your hair?"

Footage of Zael-Apollo, Espada Number Eight, helpless on the ground? Unspeakable. And lucky-lucky be, his fraccion had been locked away in drawers during the incident and didn't see a thing. That would've been embarrassing, even though the fraccion weren't exactly what Zael would call beings of cognitive refinement.

A_izen-sama will be the only one who knows I fell on my back in the shape of a Quincy _i_diot. Five minutes of my looking at the laboratory ceiling? He's going to definitely want _t_o ask about that. He's going to call any second now wanting to ask about that._

Zael tossed his hair and pushed up his glasses with his middle finger. The legs of his glasses were the remnant of his Hollow mask. Through the tinted lenses designed by Aizen, not only could Zael know the location of hougyoku at all times, he could record all number of trespasses: absent doorkeepers, slacking sparring instructors, grumpy fraccion calling Ichimaru-sama unpleasant names.

Not that any of it every matter to Aizen. Aizen would give paternal-like warnings to those who'd committed the worst infractions, but he never punished anyone.

L_ittle liar told Aizen that the Quincy was dead._

It wasn't fair, Zael felt, that the little Espada with the big green eyes wasn't even going to get a warning. Zael knew that Ulquiorra had wanted to stop the experiment at any cost. Zael had told him that breaking the enclosure would stop it, but it seems that the enclosure was indeed unbreakable. What else would any smart Arrancar fearing for his life or powers have done in that situation? Ulquiorra's solution had been clever. A dead Quincy. He'd probably kicked the kid in the balls to get him to pass out like that.

The first lie. Zael recognized it. Ulquiorra had a talent for lying to everyone else, so how could Aizen believe that one day Ulquiorra wouldn't lie to _him?_ Did Aizen really believe that Ulquiorra was that devoted? Did Aizen-sama believe that there existed one Arrancar who lacked self-interest and who would never, under any circumstances, betray him?

Zael snorted at his desk and swiveled around on his chair. Stupid, stupid Aizen-sama. The memory-cleansing during Ulquiorra hybridization had all been Aizen's operation, and the king of Las Noches himself had configured every molecule of the process. Since Aizen invented the operation, it would have to be infallible, right?

Ha, ha, Aizen. Aizen hadn't counted on the maliciousness of Zael-Apollo Grantz. Zael was the only one, besides Aizen, who knew of Ulquiorra's high Quincy composition. Zael told Ulquiorra. That teensy weensy pebble of doubt should've made Ulquiorra more susceptible to Quincy memories during the experiment….

Ulquiorra probably didn't remember anything now, the regenerating bastard, but had the experiment succeeded, Number Four would've been a Quincy-powered threat to Aizen. Aizen had wanted a loyal Quincy? Ha again. _How could anyone with memories about what the Shinigami did to the Quincy be loyal to anyone?_ In any event, Zael was certain that Ulquiorra Shiffer, favorite toy and prized chosen sacrifice, suffered a good deal in the crystal container.

Aizen's glasses didn't record memories, and for that, Zael-Apollo was thankful. Not because it kept one dimension of existence still beyond Aizen's manipulation but because Zael just didn't want anyone to see what he remembered.

Memories had always been clear, no matter how much Zael tried to avoid them. He had no love for the strange tribe and their charm bracelets, thank you. But, during the experiment, thanks to the messed-up Quincy energy that tainted the whole palace--the memories had been relived in full color and loud sounds. With thoughts and feelings of the past thrown in for good measure. And the effect had been merciless.

Zael's sister, a beautiful girl but an idiot, danced towards the Shinigami with open arms, and Ilforte, a smart boy but a total bastard, ran off in the opposite direction, leaving Zael-Apollo alone in the house.

A_lone._ Alone for the rest of his life.

Unlike many hiding children who were discovered and killed shortly after their parents, Zael lived to grow a long and prosperous life. He hadn't been killed by the Shinigami, but he wished for years that he had been.

D_uring that long life, I believed that bravest thing I ever did was deciding to live when I _w_anted to die. I chose to go on. Yey me. I knew my people had been destroyed and fuck _t_hat, I let it go. Or I thought I'd let it go._

Zael had died peacefully one night, next to his snoring spouse (hideous woman, he remembered with a wince), and became a typical ghost.

It was only after bobbing like a balloon to the ceiling that he saw the panorama of what his life had been.

Denial. Day after day of self-interest and little regret. No memory, at least no _willed _memory of the brother and sister who, despite being pains in the ass, he had loved.

I _loved Ilforte once. Isn't that amazing? That mindless bimbo who I now despise. Here's _A_izen, this powerful and gorgeous man who I think I love even at this moment_… _The _Q_uincy child I was had an attachment to his family that even surpassed--_

Zael-Apollo Grantz cleared his throat and stuck his fingers under his lenses to wipe at the fog.

N_o wonder I became a miserable stinking Hollow._

"Put it on," said Ulquiorra to Ishida.

"That?" Ishida didn't understand. "It's a woman's bracelet."

Ulquiorra looked at the silvery chain in his hand. "Zael-Apollo designed it specifically for Inoue Orihime so it's too small for you to wear." He offered the bracelet to Ishida again. "Here, hold it then."

Ishida didn't want to touch Ulquiorra, but the transfer was made with a light brushing of fingertips. Ulquiorra slipped the bracelet over Ishida's hand, and the chain fell as far as the Quincy's second knuckles.

"Is the Quincy still non-transparent?" he asked of Orihime. "I mean, can you see him?"

Orihime's eyes were huge and confused. "Yes."

"I don't," said Ulquiorra. "The moment he put it on your Quincy friend became invisible to me. Because I have superior sensing ability I can detect his reiatsu, but I can't see his body."

"And?" asked Ishida.

"Zael-Apollo was right. Quincy make-up inverts the power of the bracelet. It was designed specifically to make Inoue Orihime detectable by Arrancar alone; it was not supposed to work for whoever wore it."

Ishida thought he should bolt. This instant. Run past the guards, run through the corridors where lower-level Arrancar wouldn't see him. But he couldn't leave without Inoue-san. And Ulquiorra was standing next to her--Ulquiorra's Espada speed had to be greater than his own.

"When I came in here, without announcing myself--" Ulquiorra gave a glance to Orihime as if apologizing. Ishida narrowed his eyes. The monster wouldn't be apologizing, would he? "When I came in here," said Ulquiorra, "both of you could see me, is that correct?"

"Yes," said Ishida and Orihime in unison.

No point lying about it, Ishida figured. Orihime had jumped at the sight of Ulquiorra, and Ishida was sure that he himself had made some startled gesture.

"But… but…." Orihime was frowning now. _"Would you explain again why the bracelet isn't hiding you?"_

Ulquiorra lowered his eyes for a moment. He raised them again and said, "Obviously, because I am not a Quincy."

"But that little boy," began Orihime. "One time you--"

"Your friend's Quincy-ness," interrupted Ulquiorra, "did not have a significant effect upon me during the experiment."

"And no _Arrancar-ness_"--Ishida emphasized the word as if it tasted bad--"got into me."

"Aizen-sama would want to check that, as well as whether or not you have reservoirs of Quincy power left and can still channel spiritrons to the best of your ability--"

Ishida clutched his Quincy medallion. The bracelet Ulquiorra had given him clinked against it. "Of course I can."

"If you can, then Aizen-sama will want to repeat the experiment," Ulquiorra said. "If you can't.…" Again another seemingly apologetic look at Orihime. "Then he will kill you."

Orihime gasped. "But he sent my other friends back to the Living World!"

"Ishida Uryuu has too much information about the hougyoku; he was inside the enclosure it created, and in some ways that is like being at the core of the hougyoku itself."

"I don't know anything," Ishida lied. "I don't remember anything about being inside there."

"You could still have untapped data in your mind or you could be lying to me at this moment. In any case, I want you to use that bracelet to escape Las Noches."

Neither Orihime nor Ishida had seen that statement coming. They both knew Ulquiorra as a liar, though, so they hesitated to feel hope. Ishida could feel the absence of hope in his chest. His mind, though, was alert. _An opportunity has presented itself._

"I'm not leaving without Inoue-san."

"I'm afraid that cannot be," said Ulquiorra. "Aizen-sama will forgive me for letting the Quincy escape. Allowing my main charge to escape with him would be treason."

"So I'm not important? So Aizen could let me go just like that?"

"Understand this, Quincy. I'm doing this out of self-interest. My kind are beings of self-interest. We do not soften or change under the influence of your human memories or your Quincy powers. _I am Ulquiorra Shiffer, Espada Number Four…._

Ishida was starting to believe what Ulquiorra was saying.

"And my reasoning," Ulquiorra continued, "for letting you escape is that, even though I know you can't change me into a Quincy, the experiment will no doubt be performed again, and I have no interest in participating in such a useless humiliation. Further--" Ulquiorra's eyebrow-less forehead wrinkled as he looked from Ishida to Orihime.

W_e must look freaked out,_ Ishida thought.

"There is also the possibility that proximity to you may exacerbate whatever small remnants of _you_" --Ulquiorra looked blankly at Ishida--"remain in my spirit body. I am regenerating my neurons and significant self, but…."

"I don't want _you_ in me either," said Ishida, and he paused, blushing at the double meaning of that statement. "But like I said before, I'm not going anywhere without Inoue-san."

"Ishida-kun." Orihime began in a pleading tone. "You don't know what you're saying."

"I know exactly what I'm saying. _I'm staying here._ I'll offer myself to serve in Aizen's army. I won't lose sight of you. I--"

"He said you were going to be killed!"

"I'm the one who is going to save you!" Ishida said in a sharp voice.

Orihime answered him just as sharply. "I'm the one who's going to save _myself. _I have a purpose here in Las Noches, and I will save you and Kurosaki-kun and everyone else." Her face was relaxing out of its stern look. "I will save the world. I know I will. Trust me. Can you trust me?"

Ishida looked into her brown eyes and could. He didn't want to, but he could. The two held one another's gaze for a long moment, and it occurred to Ishida that he had never looked for so long into another person's eyes. _Trust me, she says, trust me. _

"Save the world," Ulquiorra repeated without a trace of sarcasm in his voice. "Aizen-sama uses that phrase often."

Ishida broke his look with Orihime to glare at Ulquiorra. "Aizen slaughtered his fellow Shinigami in Soul Society," he snapped. "I don't know why you don't believe he's going to turn on the Arrancar as well."

"And I don't understand why you want to stay and upset this girl with your death. In your world, you would have a chance of seeing her again."

Orihime looked at Ishida and her eyes said he had to go.

But he still didn't want to go.

"Now," she said. "Go now."

She reached for him, and when Ishida felt the tug on his sleeves, he thought that she was drawing him closer for a goodbye hug. Instead she pulled hard enough to bring her face close to his and--

She kissed him.

He would wonder, many times later, if she had kissed him out of pity. If she had kissed him because she'd felt what was happening in the other room and instinctively had wanted to restore his sense of manliness. He would wonder if the kiss held hope for more kisses, if it was a promise. A girl's first kiss--that had to mean something, right? He would wonder how much the kiss could mean since she still--no doubt--cared for Kurosaki, not him.

But for the moment her slightly parted lips rested on his, and the kiss refreshed his soul.

He knew that the kiss was not goodbye.

When they pulled apart (she moved away first and only then did Ishida realize that he had been holding her by the shoulders), Orihime looked as surprised as Ishida felt.

"Save the world…." Ulquiorra, unimpressed by the kissing, was still considering the curiosity of Orihime's remark. "Go now, Quincy, before Aizen gives me a direct order about where to take you."

Ishida still hesitated.

"Ishida-kun."

It was a humiliation to beg anything of Ulquiorra, and Ishida still didn't trust the Espada, but there were all these Arrancar around who seemed so crass, and then there was Aizen who Ishida just _knew _was a pervert.

"Ulquiorra," Ishida began. "Will you not let…." His voice was too soft, and he had to start again so it would be comprehensible.

Ulquiorra stared at him.

N_ot goodbye._

"Please don't let anything happen to her." Ishida wanted to bolt before looking at Inoue-san again and before the emotion showed in his eyes. "Please protect her."

Ulquiorra's face, as always, showed no read-able response.

And Ishida flew out of the room in a wind of hirenkyaku.

Orihime and Ulquiorra stood next to one another for a short time, neither saying a word. When Ulquiorra turned to tell her that he was going to leave her room to see Aizen, he noticed the tears in her eyes. "Friendships weaken human beings," he said and jutted his chin forwards. Was the girl going to expect him to now be her friend? "Imagine if he had stayed here and was killed. You'd be crying harder."

Orihime asked Ulquiorra. "Will Aizen punish you?"

"No," said Ulquiorra. "Not Aizen. I may have my arm ripped off by Tousen-sama, though."

Orihime looked at her hands, the ones that had healed Grimmjow. "Thank you. Thank you so much for saving Ishida-kun. If there's anything I can do to help--"

"I don't need your help," Ulquiorra said. "Among the Espada, I am unique in one ability. I can regenerate myself."

"You can?"

And re-making himself was exactly what Ulquiorra planned to do for the next few days. He walked away from his charge and her undisguised affection for him and informed the communicator on the wall that if anyone wanted him, he would be in Aizen-sama's quarters.

_One would expect Ichimaru Gin to assume a selfish, space-dominating sleep position, one with far-flung arms and with legs spread as wide as his grin. Gin was a man who didn't reveal much about himself, though, and that showed while he slept. _

_When Ulquiorra walked into the room, he noted that Gin's sleep position rarely varied: He was curled up, embryo-style. Guarded, even though asleep. His hands folded into a flat pillow under his head even though Aizen's giant bed was crowded with all manner and sizes of pillows. _

_Aizen-sama had once said that he slept with hands as pillows because of his days in _the Rukongai, and a displeased Gin had disagreed with that evaluation. "If I still kept to the habits of poverty," Gin had said, "I would be charging you by the minute for time spent on my knees."

It had taken Ulquiorra, who was intelligent but ignorant of culture beyond Las Noches, a few days to figure out what Gin meant by that remark. Someone who exchanges sex for another service. How was Gin different now?

Gin was a light sleeper, so Ulquiorra moved silently past the bed and removed his long coat.

"Anything?" came Aizen's voice from behind a wall of white drapery.

Ulquiorra knew what he was talking about.

"I couldn't see his memories," Ulquiorra said. "I couldn't see anything."

Ulquiorra could tell that Aizen believed him. Or if Aizen doubted him, it wasn't a serious matter for the king of Las Noches.

"Ah, that's because you're special, Ulquiorra." Aizen, wearing a light kimono, emerged from behind the room divider. "Your unique consciousness dominates any reishi that might interfere with your spirit body. The Quincy--now, he wasn't as strong as I'd hoped."

"I take it that you don't mind him already being outside the perimeters of Las Noches and running towards Garganta."

"I told you I trusted you with this project," Aizen said. "Letting the Quincy go was a creative move."

"Creative?" Ulquiorra stood a long length of bedroom away from Aizen. His words were just loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to disturb Gin.

Aizen smiled. "You mean you weren't trying to get rid of what infected my army?"

"Infected?"

"The Quincy experiment triggered responses all over Hueco Mundo." Aizen removed his kimono and stood, broad-chested, olive-skinned and nude, before Ulquiorra. "No one, surprisingly, has reported the phenomenon yet, and I expect there must be some trepidation in the ranks. I was considering killing in Quincy in some public display to restore the army's faith in me and show that no enemy could stand before us but--"

"I let him go," said Ulquiorra. "You will forgive me for that?"

"Nonsense, not to worry," said Aizen. He moved towards Ulquiorra in a stride that was both regal and familiar. "Not to worry. The Hollow and Arrancar who experienced disorientation during the experiment will not suffer a repeat occurrence, and they will assume the problem was taken care of."

"I didn't want a repeat of the experiment," Ulquiorra confessed. His face was expressionless as Aizen brought his hands to his sash and unbound it.

"I don't blame you," Aizen said. "There would not have been another experiment, though. The Quincy was weak. Even despite his little resurrection after the experiment, I could tell right away--he'd given you no extra power." Aizen unzipped Ulquiorra's coat, and it fell away, revealing the slight but muscular torso tattooed with the number 4.

Ulquiorra could see that torso reflected in one of the huge mirrors strategically placed around the bedroom. Lithe-ness. Was this a characteristic common across the spirit bodies of Arrancar with Quincy soul?

Aizen leaned forward and kissed the number 4 on his favorite Espada's chest. "My only concern, Ulquiorra, was whether or not your memories had been affected. Taking upon a store of Quincy memories--well, that would've been unpleasant for you, wouldn't it have?"

Ulquiorra's gaze swept past all the mirrors and located the one small, high window in the room. Darkness there. A moon he now recognized as rotating in the opposite direction as the one in the Living World.

"You watched me in Orihime's room," said Ulquiorra. "You saw me give the Quincy the bracelet and tell him why he should go. You didn't, at any point, believe that I was to betray you?"

"Of course not." Aizen kissed the front of Ulquiorra's neck and then circled him to kiss the back of it. Both of Aizen's hands pushed down Ulquiorra's wide-legged hakama with the deep pockets and the hougyoku. The tiny ball rolled out of its hiding place onto the floor. It was often lost in this room, among the sheets and clothes and pillows. Aizen trusted Gin and Ulquiorra that much.

"You are my most intelligent creation," Aizen continued. "You would not betray me. You would not walk into the fire. You live for me, and for that, I let you live. Leaving me and my world would mean the very erasure of your existence."

Ulquiorra made a barely perceptible sighing sound as Aizen's body pressed closer. It was not irresistible, but why would one ever want to resist this body?

"There might come a time," Ulquiorra said, "when I might want to obliterate my own existence." He wasn't sure why he wanted to allow Aizen to guess at the truth. "If I believed that the being you created was going to be diminished in power in any way--why would I not turn my own reiatsu against itself and dissolve into that unredeemable oblivion that lies between Heaven and the Living World?"

"You remember my talking about the injustice of reincarnation with Gin," said Aizen. "Your memory for these sorts of things is fascinating."

Aizen knew? Knew about Ulquiorra's new memories?

"I pay close attention to everything you say," Ulquiorra said. Aizen's long eyelashes were fluttering against skin of hierro as Aizen kissed his shoulders.

"Would you, really, kill yourself?" Aizen breathed the words.

"The chances for finding myself in a situation where I consider suicide are very small."

"Before you could even consider such a thing," said Aizen, "I would destroy you with my own hands."

Aizen's tone of voice told Ulquiorra that Aizen was vulnerable. That, maybe, because Aizen didn't _want _his favorite Espada to have any self-determination, he would continue to believe that he didn't.

Ulquiorra continued to stare out the window, and his arms still hung by his sides. There would be a point at which he would embrace the king of Las Noches, but for now, Aizen's power was still resistible.

"Destroy me yourself? I matter that much to you?"

Aizen smiled. "Perceptive as always. You're not indispensable to my army, but I do care, yes."

"And it doesn't bother you that I have no feelings for you whatsoever?" Ulquiorra had a new sensitivity to expressions of attachment. He wondered if that sensitivity would wane.

Aizen took a limp fistful of Ulquiorra's black hair. He kissed the white flesh at the very nape of his neck. "I prefer you that way," Aizen said. "Devotion is one thing, but an excess of it would make you a woman."

Ulquiorra turned around and kissed Aizen's chin. He held his open mouth next to Aizen's lips. "I don't understand," he whispered. His hands of hierro swept into the softness of Aizen's hair.

"Of course not." Aizen kneaded Ulquiorra's bony shoulders. "I created you this way. Beautiful, cold, and innocent of your Hollow past."

Ulquiorra thought that if Aizen's hand was going to plunge through his body, killing his favorite Arrancar, that it would've happened by now. The rest of the night would be a bright, wakeful oblivion.

As the two exchanged a hard, deep and unbreakable kiss, Ulquiorra thought: _No, I'm not innocent._

N_o, I'm not innocent_. The secret was something new to hold in his pocket. Knowing something that Aizen didn't know felt heavier than the hougyoku. Even though it could be of no advantage to Ulquiorra, really, in power or status, the secret gave Ulquiorra a separateness from his leader. A selfdom.

That alone felt like escape.

E_ND_

A/N: There will be a very short epilogue to this story so I can have five parts for each spoke of the Quincy star (yes, neurotic numerology), but this is the end of Ulquiorra's story.

And now here comes the long-ass, unnecessary and eccentric author's note I warned you about:

This was my first attempt to expand on a drabble. It didn't work. The drabble, a shameless excuse to molest a favorite character, was supposed to be included, without much revision, in this story. Sorry girls, but it wasn't. It's here if you want to read it. (http://bleach. Diaspora may be the P taken out of a PWP or it may have ended up a twenty thousand-word excuse for an Ulquiorra/Ishida moment of hotness.

Maybe, with this story, I tried to rewrite "Bright Majestic Winter" (http://bleach. minus the morbid ending for Ulquiorra. "Winter" was written before the manga had progressed much into the Hueco Mundo arc, and I imagined HM as a frozen place. It turned out to be an arid place--there's a difference in mood and metaphor there. Also, I was depressed when I wrote Winter, nervous about writing eroticized non-con, and wrestling with the issue of culpability. I made Aizen the typical puppeteer villain in that story, and in this one, I wanted to give some voice to those he manipulates. I really wanted Ulquiorra and Ishida to escape this time.

It's funny that this story, like "Winter", was written while listening to choral music. I didn't intend that; it was a coincidence I noticed only when I was halfway through the fic.

The painfully gorgeous 17th century Allegri Miserere was the background music for "Winter." The music for this fic was the less ecstatic 20th century Alfred Schittke Concerto for Choir based on the 10th century _Russian Book of Mournful Songs_. The songs are about redemption, but they're more Jewish than Christian as far as choral music goes; they're very contemplative and dark. They begin:

"_I, an expert in human passions,_

C_omposed this collection of songs, where every verse_

I_s full to the brim with black sorrow…."_

I heard a post-story Ulquiorra composing those emotions above.

I know that some Arrancar fans (helloooo Shini!) don't like a redeemed Ulquiorra or a story that softens his character. Some fans dislike reincarnation or human life stories about the Arrancar. To them, I apologize. I tried not to make Ulquiorra change from his villainous self when I wrote this story, but I must admit, I thought of him when I read this:

P_rayer D by Grigor Narekatsi, author of __Mournful Songs__, translated from Russian:_

S_ince I have traveled the path of destruction_

p_ursuing the footprints of darkness,_

l_ike the priests of Israel scolded by the prophet, and_

s_ince I have traded your plot of paradise for_

a _barren desert,_

h_ow can I call myself human,_

w_hen I have earned a place among the inhuman?_

H_ow can I be named a thinking being,_

w_hen I indulge in brutish ways?_

H_ow can I be called a seeing being,_

w_hen I have snuffed out my inner light?_

H_ow can I be known as cognizant,_

w_hen I have slammed the door on wisdom?_

H_ow can I aspire to incorruptible grace,_

w_hen with my own hand I have slain my soul?_


	5. Chapter 5

Diaspora

by debbiechan

Disclaimer: Kubo Tite owns Bleach; Bleach owns my soul.

Part Five: _Epilogue_

I'_ll return the hougyoku to a state where it never existed--using my powers. Orihime, chapter 249_

The moment a toy bow was put into the hands of a Quincy child, that child felt special. That child felt chosen

The child would not be able to summon a bow for spiritrons for some time in his training, but the gift of a toy wooden bow to a Quincy child from a Quincy parent was a ceremonious occasion. Songs were sung. Special foods were eaten. The word was repeated over and over again--_chosen. _Among all the peoples of the Earth, the Quincy had the power to protect the souls of the dead from terrible monsters of the afterlife. A gift, a distinction, a treasured identity.

And thus, each Quincy child believed he had a glorious destiny.

The Elders knew. Saving a soul was a glorious feeling indeed, and yes, each Quincy was chosen--but chosen for what? The perils were there--death by Hollow or even by humans who suspected the Quincy of being malevolent spirits. The Quincy, like all people, suffered and rejoiced in their daily lives. Like all people, they tried to avoid Death. But until the Shinigami came for them, the Quincy believed that they had a right to exist.

Orihime pressed her fingers against the folds of her newly-made Arrancar hakama. It was a strange fabric, almost transparent, and she was afraid to try it on because she thought it would reveal too much. It didn't, though.

They cared for her. Aizen and the Arrancar cared for her. They treated her well. They gave her the foods she craved. Every night she slept on the softest mattress with the softest blankets in all of Las Noches.

Having seen, if only for that short time, the memories of Quincy souls when they were human, Orihime had a new perception of Ishida-kun. He said he was the last one. He obviously had Quincy powers, but his father--wouldn't his father be a Quincy too? Orihime thought he was a doctor. How did Ishida learn to summon a bow if a little toy wooden one was never placed in his hands?

Ishida-kun believed in Destiny. That was part of what made him strong.

Destiny was a funny concept. Orihime had never understood it. Had she been destined to meet Kurosaki-kun and travel to Soul Society? Or was it chance--if she had brushed her hair once less time before going to bed would the next day and her whole life have been different?

Here she was, by destiny or chance, the only human among the inhabitants of Hueco Mundo. Did those who believed they were chosen for a certain fate feel less fear than the ones who believed that every next happening happened by chance? Orihime felt afraid a lot of the time. The holes in the spirits around her meant that the beings had no hearts. Ulquiorra, as fond as she was becoming of him, had no heart.

Orihime learned, as the hours passed in Las Noches, and as the sandstorms blew over and over past her window, that neither Destiny nor Chance was going to decide the purpose of her life. Will, concentrated will, would lead her to destroy the hougyoku--or if not that, then to find some way to escape this place, with her life and no help from others.

So much for hope. Hope was a debilitating feeling. It waited and it waited by the window. Will didn't wait. It didn't wait for Destiny or Fate to show the way.

Ishida-kun, she knew, believed in that earnest way of his that, because he was a Quincy, he was chosen for a great destiny. It did, after all, make sense that the Last Destiny should have a great one.

If not, the universe was unfair.


End file.
